


Rescue Run

by rebooting



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Abduction, Azazel won't stop talking, F/M, M/M, Medical Procedures, Multi, Other, Relationships if you squint, Sexual Assault, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:11:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebooting/pseuds/rebooting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixteen months after the beach, Erik sends Emma on a routine sweep to ensure that the Westchester mansion is still all right, and finds out that Charles, Hank, Alex, Sean, and a re-formed Darwin have been taken. Despite their prior enmity, Erik and Moira join forces to find out who is behind the disappearance, and what they'll need to do to bring their friends back home. THIS FIC WILL REMAIN UNFINISHED; PLEASE SEE NOTES.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ~~12th January 2013 - This fic is on indefinite hiatus. Following the death of my brother in 2012, I'm having an incredibly difficult time writing anything I'd been working on at the time of his death. I will be attempting to finish and update this fic eventually, but at the moment am not able to. My apologies to those who have been reading.~~  
>  16th July 2013 - Unfortunately, I'm going to call it a day on finishing this work. I'm still struggling with writing anything I had ongoing at the time of my brother's death, and have been letting the guilt over not completing them affect how much I'm able to write at all. I'm very sorry.

It's out of respect for Charles and the friendship they had shared, however briefly, that Erik ignores the Westchester mansion when drawing up strike plans. It's out of respect for the growing talents of the three young men who remained with Charles that Erik doesn't target them, or in fact make any attempts at communication or conversion.

He knows that Raven sometimes calls and waits until Hank picks up the phone, and he also knows that she hangs up after he's said hello. He knows that Angel still traces the ragged line that marks where her wing has healed and looks regretful, that she sometimes wakes from nightmares that contain Alex self-destructing over having hurt a second teammate. (He knows this because he has Emma do sweeps of their lair during the night, to ensure nobody enters unnoticed, and Emma reports disturbances amongst their recruits to him.)

He knows that Emma minds the helmet much less on him than she did on Shaw. He is very careful not to think about Shaw more than he has to, but it's still a relief that Emma, Janos and Azazel see him as an entirely different commander than their previous one. Where Shaw insinuated and flattered and manipulated, Erik is blunt. He tells them what he expects of them. Azazel seems to respect him for it. Janos hovers for a while, uncertain, but eventually settles into an easy working relationship with Erik that manages to balance the line between deference and unquestioning obedience.

Erik doesn't mind questions; after all, if his colleagues can see flaws in his plans, he should be told. He makes that clear from the start. He _is_ in charge, but he wants them to use their brains as much as they do their abilities. It's easier for Raven and Angel, who know him better, but Emma, Janos and Azazel come to an understanding quickly enough.

His respect for Charles doesn't extend to _not_ having Emma brush by the mansion every so often to ensure that everything is as it should be. She can't touch Charles's mind, and after the first time she reports that Charles _knows_ she's looking, but after repeated visits where she does nothing _but_ look, quickly and almost politely, Charles seems to accept that it isn't the prelude to an attack. She even brings messages back sometimes.

Three months after the beach, Emma tells Erik that Charles has told the kids his diagnosis. She explains as clinically as she can, in language that Erik is certain she skimmed from Hank's mind, and Erik forces himself to remain impassive. She can't read his mind, not with the helmet that he's taken to wearing every waking hour, but he can see the sympathy on her face. She's not as cold as he'd assumed.

"He's adjusting," she says quietly. "They're-"

"Don't," Erik snaps. There is no absolution for what he's done. He dismisses Emma with a gesture, less respect than he normally shows his colleagues, but she seems to understand, and she leaves him to his thoughts - and his self-recrimination.

Six months after the beach, she returns from a visit with a slight frown on her face, and asks, "Who's Darwin?"

Is, not was. Erik looks at her and asks carefully, "Why?"

She shrugs. "They're all very happy about him being back."

Erik blinks, and then laughs. "Son of a bitch. He _did_ adapt."

He explains the story to Emma, and then goes to tell Raven and Angel. He knows they were closer to Darwin than he was - hardly surprising, given his reluctance to allow _anybody_ close to him - and their relief and joy almost makes him feel as though they're back in the mansion, before the beach happened.

This time, when Raven calls the mansion, she stays on the line long enough to say, "Tell Darwin welcome back".

Eleven months after the beach, they've relocated twice, trying to find a facility that works for them without being the obvious choice for a group of mutants on the run from the government. They're all wanted by now, Emma, Erik, Angel, and Raven especially; Azazel and Janos don't, apparently, have identities as far as America is concerned. Erik had considered moving them out of the States, but he knows Raven wants to be close to Charles, so he settles for searching for a better, more secure facility.

A disused boarding school in rural Michigan, abandoned because of structural integrity problems that would have been too expensive for the tiny religious group that ran it to repair, turns out to be a viable option. Erik can repair most of the damage to the superstructure, and Janos proves to be surprisingly adept at carpentry, offering to take charge of repairing the innards of the complex.

It's an ironic juxtaposition, Erik thinks sourly one evening; Charles setting up a school in his home, and Erik attempting to make a home in a school.

Sixteen months after the beach, Emma comes back from her usual sweep of the Westchester mansion and wakes Erik, her normally-cool expression worried. That should amuse him - they've all got attached to Charles and his band of boys somehow, living vicariously through Emma's reports of what they're doing - but with the helmet off, and with Emma unconsciously projecting as much as she is, the concern is contagious.

"They're gone," she says. Before Erik can demand a further explanation, she provides it. "I went in to look for signs of a struggle. Someone's taken them."

He should admonish her for taking that risk without backup, but he doesn't. Instead, fuelled by the _certainty_ that something has gone deeply, horribly wrong, he does what he swore he'd never do - he opens his mind and says, "Show me."

She nods, understanding, and projects the memories into his mind. At first, Erik is caught in the bittersweet pain of viewing the halls and rooms like a stranger, when _he_ still remembers the time those halls were something like home. But then Emma's memories reach Hank's lab and the rusty splash of blood on the floor, and he feels his anger begin to rise. The memories move on, to the kitchen, where a chopping board and rotting vegetables are on the floor, obviously left where they fell.

Charles's room brings a combination of rage and nostalgia. Erik forces both down, forces himself to examine Emma's memory clinically, but the sight of the wheelchair on its side makes it impossible for him to keep his temper. He's aware of the vibration of metal all around him, and of Emma's sharp intake of breath, but he ignores them, focusing on the memory.

There's an odd _feeling_ to the memories. He frowns, focusing on that, and is suddenly almost overwhelmed by the sickening, gut-wrenching fear. The hum of vibrating metal rises into a scream, and then there's a weight on his head and the memories are cut off sharply.

He spends a few minutes panting from the intensity of the fear, and only when he has his breath back does he realise that he has the helmet on, that Emma must have forced it onto his head. She's still standing in front of him, but she looks shaken. She has a right to be, he realises, looking at the twisted wreck that _used_ to be a metal-framed mirror against the wall.

"Why were you afraid?" he asks eventually, once he's sure his voice is under control.

"Your friend is powerful," Emma replies. Her voice, like Erik's, is tightly-controlled, artificially calm. "And even if he wasn't, strong emotion leaves a sort of… psychic stain. _I_ wasn't afraid; I was picking up on _their_ fear."

There's a strange knot in Erik's chest. He ignores it, getting to his feet, and says to Emma, "We're going after them."

She nods, like it's not even a question. He supposed he should be amused at that, at the fact that he's trained this little group so well that one of his former foes is willing to go after the people who are, technically, their enemies, but he has no room for amusement, not with Charles and the kids at risk.

"Raven and I will make the usual rounds," she says calmly. "Government officials, military. We-"

"No," Erik interrupts, his tone turning savage. "I know where we start."

Who is the government agent who knows the most about them, after all?

"Moira MacTaggert."

 

 

"Alex. Alex, man, breathe. Breathe."

He can hear Darwin talking, trying to soothe him, but the voice is eclipsed by pain and by the bone-deep knowledge that if he releases the energy within him, no matter how well the Professor taught him to control it, he's going to have to watch Darwin burn up in front of him _again_. That's the _whole reason_ he's not in solitary, because the sick fucks know he'd let loose if it was just him and they want to see how long he can contain it. He _knows_ that's what they want because they drag him outside every day, stake him out in the sun for three hours until he can feel the energy searing his veins, and then shove him back in here with Darwin and wait to see what wins out, his self-control or the solar energy that's burning him up inside.

He doesn't even get the chance to burn any off during the day, because they stake him opposite someone else - a random guard at first, but after the first day, when he proved that he's willing to hurt the fucks working in this place, they replace the guard with Sean. Alex tries to talk to Sean, when the guards leave them mostly alone, running his mouth like he doesn't have a care in the world, saying anything that comes to mind, anything that will distract Sean from the thick bandages at his throat and the vicious leather and metal contraption strapped around his head.

And at the end of their three hours, the guards drag Sean away and put Alex back in his cell, where everything is metal-lined and reflective and it's so narrow that he can barely turn around, and the only place for his power to go is through Darwin.

He can't let loose. He can't watch Darwin die because of his power again. And Darwin's all of three feet away, but Alex can't see him, not really. All he can see is Darwin looking at him as that horrible, ugly red wells up inside him before he's just _gone_.

 

 

To her credit, Moira reacts fairly well to waking up and finding Erik and Emma in her bedroom. Her hand twitches towards the pillow and Erik lifts the gun he'd taken from underneath it, raising his eyebrows.

"Looking for this?"

She looks at him for a moment and then sighs, sitting up in the bed and giving him a thoroughly unimpressed glare.

"What do you want, Lehnsherr?"

Strangely, he appreciates her use of his surname. Using his first name would be too familiar, too _friendly_ , and they both know that they're not friends. Never have been. Erik hadn't trusted her from the very start, and she'd been wary of his distance. But he can respect her fortitude.

"Charles," he says simply, not even glancing at Emma, who he knows is winnowing through Moira's mind to find any hints of deceit. Moira frowns, looking confused, and after a moment longer, Emma speaks.

"She doesn't know who did it."

"Who did _what_?" Moira demands, her expression tightening as she puts two and two together. "Someone found them, didn't they? And you thought _I_ told them?"

Her outrage at the thought is a little impressive, and Erik begins to see why Charles liked her. She's no use to them if she doesn't know who took Charles and the kids, though, so he turns to leave.

"Wait." When he turns back, she's on her feet, a determined expression on her face. "You'll need help. If it's government, you'll need someone who can get you access to the right people. I've still got _some_ contacts in the CIA, people who owe me favours. Let me help."

"Why?" Erik demands harshly. "Why should I trust you? You're one of _them_."

Her reply, when it comes, is painful in its simplicity.

"Because I love him too."

Erik is silent for several long moments, feeling Emma's gaze on him as he looks at Moira. She's so fragile, he thinks. Standing in a dark bedroom, barefoot and shivering in the cool night air, she looks as though he could break her with a thought. But her expression is stony, and he knows, somehow, that she'll fight for Charles as violently as he will.

Eventually, slowly, he nods.

"Come along, then. We've got a lot of work to do."

 

 

The worst of it, in Hank's opinion, is the fact that none of them will even _acknowledge_ him.

He could deal with the aggressive deprivation of stimulus - he knows what they're trying to achieve with it, and he knows that it won't work. For all his appearance has turned animalistic, his mind is still the same, and he can deal with lack of visual stimulation and a complete dearth of any scent but antiseptic in ways that an animal couldn't. But none of the orderlies who periodically come by to take blood or hair samples or - _other_ samples - will even acknowledge that he can _speak_ , much less talk _to_ him.

It's not uneasiness, either. With his senses ramped up like this he can smell adrenaline, and they don’t have it. It's deliberate.

They leave him alone in between tests, in a plain, empty cell that gives him enough room to take six steps before he has to turn around. There's no bed, no provisions made for bodily functions, and while he might normally put that down to cruelty, he knows it serves a different purpose for him than it would for any of the others. They're making it very clear that he's not a person, and doesn't get the consideration that a person would.

They do feed him, irregularly, but after the first day he refuses to eat what they give him. His mind is still very much human, and it rebels at the idea of choking down the raw meat they throw into his cell. He forces himself to drink the water they provide, knowing that dehydrating himself will only make things worse, but it turns his stomach every time he has to lift the plastic bowl and drink from it.

He still tries to talk to the orderlies, even as they go about their business quietly, ignoring him except to take their samples. He refuses to fight them after the first time, when he earned a tranquiliser that gave him a headache for hours after he woke. A part of him _can't_ let himself fight them, because that'll just prove that he's nothing more than the animal they think he is.

 

 

It takes them far too long to track down someone who knows about the Westchester mansion. Moira's contacts come up blank, one after another, until finally one of them mentions a government contract that was begun not long after "the missile crisis". He doesn't know many details, but he knows enough: the US government contracted a man named Steven Lang, a pioneer in robotics and genetics, and a host of engineers, architects and scientists, some of them specialising in more esoteric fields than the government usually finds a use for.

Erik's instincts are screaming at him to go blazing in and take back the mutants who have been abducted, but the others - all of them, Moira _and_ his crew - point out that they don't even know where Lang _is_ yet. Instead, they retreat to their base, with Emma clouding Moira's mind enough that she won't be able to retrace their steps and betray them to the government. Raven is welcoming enough, hugging Moira fiercely. She gets more demonstrative the more worried she is, Erik has noticed. The others - Janos, Azazel, and Angel - view the CIA agent with mingled respect and suspicion; Moira doesn't remark on it, taking it in her stride.

As much as the inaction galls Erik, all they can do _right_ now is research and reconnaissance. They need to know who Lang is, as intimately as they can. They need to know exactly who the government has contracted, what they can do. They need to know every person who has interacted with Lang and his superiors on a day-to-day basis. And that's slow work.

Erik chafes at the delays. Oddly, it's Moira who comes to him when he's pacing furiously, bits and pieces of metal swirling around him in a dance whose speed betrays his emotional state. She doesn't even flinch at the miniature maelstrom that has Erik at its heart. He notes the metal on her - watch, jewellery, and she's carrying her gun - but he doesn't touch it, not yet. He waits to see what she wants.

"Charles will need you focused," she tells him quietly. "Whatever this is, it's _big_. They're all going to need us to be as strong as we can."

"Why aren't you out _looking_?" Erik demands viciously. _He_ can't be seen in public, but Moira has no price on her head. She should be out looking for leads, not standing here lecturing him.

"Raven and Emma are talking to our best lead," Moira says evenly. "They can get more information than I can. Are you listening to me? Charles is going to need you _calm_. He's going to be dealing with the kids' fear, and we can't afford to dump our own on him when we rescue them."

Erik smiles mirthlessly, reaching up to tap his helmet.

"He won't get anything from me, Moira. It's all safely locked up in here."

Her answering smile is almost sad, as though she knows something he doesn't and is sad that he doesn't realise it.

"Charles doesn't need telepathy to read you, Erik. You're an open book to him."

 

 

Silence.

Charles Xavier has never been alone for a moment in his life. Since before he can remember, he's been able to skim the thoughts of everyone around him. Even when he's not concentrating, there's always been a low, comforting background hum of consciousness, a steady, constant reminder that he's not alone in the world. He has never had to suffer through the anguish of loneliness; even when he's been physically alone, it has always been such a simple matter to reach out and touch a nearby mind - Raven, chiefly, during their childhood and adolescence - and even if he didn't announce his presence, the sheer _existence_ of so many minds around him has prevented him from ever feeling as though he's alone.

Except now.

Now there is nothing but his own mind, closed-in and claustrophobic. He doesn't even have the sight of himself to break up the terrifying monotony, because there's no light, no break in the darkness. He doesn't even have _touch_ , floating in some liquid that's kept at the same temperature as the air. It feels as though his entire body is paralysed instead of just his legs, as though he's somehow been disconnected from it and is nothing more than consciousness, trapped in the darkness.

He throws his mind outward, again and again, trying desperately to find his students. _«Hank, Alex, Armando, Sean»_ \- he cries their names over and over, until he can't tell the difference between his vocal shouts and his mental ones.

Every time, he hits the dull, smooth blankness that surrounds him and rebounds, thrown back at himself. He tries over and over, forcing his mind outward until he feels battered and bruised all over, mental pain transferring into physical, and there's still no crack in the shell around him, no hint of another consciousness.

He has no way to track the passage of time. They stuck an IV in his leg before putting him in the tank, and he can't bend enough to find it and take it out to force them to open the tank even for a moment, giving him that much of a reprieve. He knows that he's not dehydrating, even though he feels like he should be, even though hunger gnaws at his stomach until his body gets used to being given nutrients without being fed. He's getting air somehow, although it tastes stale and recycled. But with no light, with no _contact_ , he has no way of knowing how much time is passing. It feels like an eternity.

Eventually, he stops being able to call out for his students, and just screams, thrusting his mind out in a desperate attempt to find _somebody_ , anybody, any mind he can touch and use to reassure himself that it hasn't always been this way, he hasn't always been alone.

 

 

Emma and Raven return from interrogating one of Steven Lang's associates, and come straight to the ready room, where Erik has taken to sleeping. Taking one look at their expressions, Erik summons Azazel, Angel and Janos - and, after a moment's hesitation, Moira. They all come at his command, Moira checking the rounds in her pistol as she takes what has become her usual stance near the door, ready to fire on anyone who interrupts them.

"Trask knew about a facility that was being set up in Colorado," Emma reports, looking a little disgusted. This Bolivar Trask must have been worse than most humans, Erik decides; it's rare for Emma to look _this_ disturbed by her trips into someone's mind. She continues, "It's top-of-the-line, has a virtually unlimited budget, and they brought in a few Russian scientists that I've seen before."

Her gaze turns to Erik - to the helmet. His lips thin as he reins in his temper, gesturing for her to continue.

"It's being billed as a research facility," Raven says. Her tone is less even than Emma's, filled with hate and anger and a deep-rooted fear. She's in her natural blue form, but Erik can see the rippling that indicates her emotional state is having an effect on her form. Beside her, Angel reaches out to squeeze her hand, and Raven takes a deep breath, steadying herself to continue.

"It's being billed as a research facility," she repeats. "Research into 'the mutant condition'. It's strictly theoretical or voluntary - on paper."

"These things usually are," Erik says tightly. "Did you get a location?"

Emma nods. "We can be there in five minutes. I got a strong enough memory of it for Azazel to jump us in."

Azazel inclines his head in assent, looking to Erik for orders. They _all_ look to Erik for orders.

He doesn't hesitate. "Suit up. We're going in for a full assault."

They don't have a Hank to create battle suits for them, but they _do_ have Moira and her contacts. Each of them at least has body armour and a radio to stay in contact, since Erik won't allow Emma into his head to facilitate telepathic communication.

Thinking of Moira, Erik turns his head to look at her. She's unbuttoning her coat, preparing to put on the body armour, and he can't help a slight smile.

"You're going to insist on coming, I take it."

"Wild horses, Lehnsherr," she replies firmly. "We need as many people on this as we can get."

 _We_ , not _you_. Erik is beginning to realise that Moira threw her lot in with mutants a long time ago. He's beginning to realise that this human is a lot more complicated than he originally assumed.

He doesn't bother with the body armour. He doesn't _need_ it - he's more and more aware, these days, of every bit of metal around him. Nobody shooting at him will end up landing a shot.

The plastic-and-nylon constructions look strange on all of them; only Moira wears hers like she belongs in it. Azazel looks ridiculous, as though he's trying to downplay his demonic appearance, and Erik is so used to seeing Janos in perfectly-pressed suits that the lack of a suit jacket is almost shocking. But their safety is important - he needs them alive, and more and more these days he's coming to _like_ his little band of outlaws - and they'll put up with looking incongruous for a bit of extra protection from gun-happy humans.

When everyone is suited up - Erik in his red, Raven in the suit Hank designed for her, the rest of them in their preferred "street" clothes with the body armour over it - they all join hands, and Azazel looks to Emma for coordinates. A moment later, there's the odd saturation of red that accompanies Azazel's transportations, and their ready room is replaced by a small, cramped storage room.

Emma holds up a hand to forestall anyone leaving, saying, "Let me check who's here."

Erik grinds his teeth, impatient at the delay, but her suggestion makes sense. He nods his assent and she closes her eyes, sending her mind out to scan the entire compound.

"I found each of the students," she says quietly. "Night shift guards, two on each entrance and six patrolling each floor; thirty-six in total. No scientists at this hour. Three doctors, monitoring subjects." The word "subjects" comes out of her mouth twisted and full of distaste, and Erik's temper flares again. Emma continues, "There's a blank spot. That'll be where they have Xavier."

"Split up," Erik orders. "Azazel, Riptide, Angel, take care of the guards. _Quietly_. Emma, Raven, Moira, with me. Azazel, how many can you transport at once?"

Azazel hesitates, looking unsure, and eventually shrugs. "I haven't tried more than the six of you," he admits. "It gets harder, the more I take. I would not want to try to take _everyone_ back at once."

Erik had been afraid of that, but he can't risk pushing Azazel and losing the teleporter, not tonight. He nods, and says, "All right. Check back in with me when the guards are out of the picture, and we'll triage."

Azazel nods, and then he, Janos, and Angel leave the storage room - Azazel in a swirl of sulphur, the others quietly slipping out of the door. After giving them a few minutes to get rid of the guards on this level, Erik leads the way out of the room, the three women close behind him. He can feel Moira's gun in her hands, rock-steady as though she has absolutely no doubts that she's on the right side. Beside him, Raven has adjusted her natural form, lengthening, hardening and sharpening her fingernails into claws. Emma hasn't taken her diamond form yet, too focused on leading them to the first of the students.

There's so much metal in this facility. Erik can't believe their stupidity, to think that they could _dare_ to touch Charles and the children and _not_ incur the wrath of the Master of Magnetism. He can feel the walls vibrating as he passes and forces himself to pull his power in, to keep it contained. He can feel Moira's approval and bares his teeth in a grimace; he doesn't _need_ or _want_ her approval. But she's right; Charles will need them to be calm, because Emma's expression is enough for Erik to know that none of the students will be.

Eventually, after too many identical, antiseptic corridors, Emma halts, gesturing to a door with nothing but a number on it. Erik stares at that number, unconsciously rubbing his thumb over the tattoo on his arm, and his temper rises. Unable to keep it controlled, he wrenches the door from its mooring, throwing it down the corridor to land a twisted, useless wreck.

 _Nobody_ gets to reduce mutants to _numbers_. Not while he's alive.

The doorway leads into what looks disturbingly like a decontamination chamber. Erik frowns, striding in. None of Charles's students have abilities that should require decontamination. Emma reaches out to stall him, saying, "He needs a familiar face. Someone with positive connotations." Her expression twists into something alarmingly close to sadness, and she looks at Raven. "Someone who treats him like a person."

"Hank," Raven says, turning pale. She pushes past Erik and Emma, hitting the next door with her fists and turning to glare at Erik until he pulls it from its hinges, too, and then she's into the next room without stopping to look.

The smell that wafts out is enough to make Erik gag. He's smelled it before, the stench of deprivation and dehumanisation, and he'd hoped he'd never have to again. It had never been something he'd suffered personally - Shaw had tried many things, but he'd never used dehumanisation of this sort on Erik - but he remembered the faces of the men and women who had had their humanity stripped from them, and he can only imagine how much worse it must be for Hank, who has his own fears about being less than human now that his exterior is so bestial.

Emma holds them back as they listen to Raven speaking, low and hurried and soothing. Moira has her back to Hank's cell door, keeping an eye on the corridor in case they're interrupted. Erik moves forward enough to see Raven on her knees in the filthy cell, cradling Hank's face in her hands and kissing his mouth over and over, saying insistently, "You're a person. Hank, look at me. You're a person. You're the most beautiful, freaky-smart, sweetest guy I know, Hank, you're _a person_. Come on, stand up. Stand up and come with me, okay?"

Even at this distance, Erik can see the bare patches where skin and hair samples have been taken. The crook of Hank's left elbow has been shaved, and there are multiple needle marks there. They've stripped him, and Erik's temper rises again when he sees the plastic bowl of water in one corner of the cell, the untouched raw meat next to it. The young scientist is shaking, practically shuddering, and Raven turns her head to look at Erik, silently pleading with him to help.

Emma moves up behind Erik, holding a long white lab coat, and offers it to him. He takes it and enters the cell, crouching beside Hank and saying quietly, "Come on, McCoy. We're taking you home."

Together, he and Raven manage to get the lab coat on Hank and help him to his feet. Erik moves back once they're out of the cell, letting Raven stay with Hank as they make their way further down the corridor. He's still not talking, but Raven keeps up a steady, soft stream of words, assuring him over and over that it's going to be all right, that he's safe now.

Safe, yes, Erik thinks moodily, but he's not sure any of them are going to be all right after this.

This is the containment floor, Emma explains as they continue on. The basement level, surrounded by six feet of concrete and steel, heavily reinforced above and below. It's where they keep the mutants that have been classed as definitely dangerous, rather than potentially. It's where they'll find Alex and Darwin.

The next door Emma points to is thick and heavy, and takes a little more effort for Erik to rip free of the wall. He doesn't send it flying this time, having noted Hank's flinch at the scream of metal as he tore it free; he lets it float to the ground, settling with a thump.

At first, he thinks the cell is empty, that they've come too late. But then he spots the trapdoor in the floor, narrow enough that it looks like it just barely admits a person, and his gut clenches. Oubliette. He snaps the deadbolts and lifts the trapdoor, looking down at blonde hair and reddened skin before it clicks that this is Alex.

He kneels by the trapdoor and reaches in to touch Alex's shoulder, trying to see if the younger man is awake or unconscious. His answer comes in the form of an agonised scream, as his fingers leave bright red imprints on Alex's skin. He snatches his hand back, gasping an apology, and Alex subsides, whimpering softly.

Erik can feel the heat coming off Alex's skin, hotter than any fever he's felt before. He can feel the _fear_ radiating off Alex, and he glances up to Emma, wordlessly asking her what's wrong.

"There's another door," she says quietly, kneeling by it. "Can you get this for me? He won't let you touch him until we get Darwin out."

Now, Erik understands, and the anger within him begins to boil into rage. They put Alex in the same cell as Darwin, and he's burning up because he won't release any of the energy within him. He understands the logic behind it, the need to control the most destructive of the mutants they've imprisoned, but it _infuriates_ him, and he promises himself to take his time killing whoever came up with this sick place.

He removes the second trapdoor for Emma, and she and Moira reach down and carefully pull Darwin out. He seems relatively uninjured; of course he does, Erik thinks sardonically. He adapts. He adapted to an energy that would kill almost anyone else by turning _gaseous_ , for God's sake. The scientists wouldn't have been able to do much to him.

Darwin gives Emma and Moira a nod of thanks and then joins Erik by the door to Alex's oubliette. He gives Erik a long, hard look - obviously he's been told about what happened, but just as obviously he's withholding judgement - and says quietly, "He's gone delirious."

They're not going to be able to get Alex out without hurting him. Erik and Darwin reach in and grasp him under the arms and around the chest and pull him out of the oubliette, trying to ignore the screams. It's harder to ignore the way he begs them to stop, to just let him burn off without hurting Darwin.

Any contact seems to hurt him, turning his already-reddened skin an angry, burned-looking colour. Erik makes a snap decision, looking up at Emma and saying, "Put him to sleep."

Darwin insists on being the one to carry the unconscious Alex, holding him protectively against his chest. It's the safest option, as well as the one that makes the most sense; Darwin can defend Alex better than any of the rest of them could, solely by virtue of his mutation.

The next floor up is the medical floor, Emma tells them as they enter an elevator. Erik forces himself to let the mechanisms do the work, rather than making the elevator ascend using his ability, and the doors slide open on a corridor that's spotlessly clean and smells too sterile.

Hank whimpers at the smell, and Raven moves closer to him, protectively. Erik glances at them, at Darwin and Alex, and says, "You four wait here."

He, Emma, and Moira move out.

This level is the one that tears at Erik's carefully-maintained calm. It's too similar to the halls he was led through as a teenager, to examination rooms and laboratories. He can feel Moira watching him as the metal around them vibrates lightly, but he can't rein in his temper more than he already is.

And, eventually, Emma leads them to an observation window.

The boy in the bed is barely recognisable as Sean. There are heavy leather restraints wrapped around his wrists and ankles, thick bandages swathing his throat, and a hideous leather-and-metal device strapped around his head. They've shaved his head and stuck IVs in him, and Erik can see electrodes from the observation window.

There are also two doctors on the room - at least, he assumes they're doctors. They're wearing lab coats and one of them has a stethoscope around his neck, and Erik feels absolutely no guilt as he reaches out with his power and drags their dogtag chains up, tightening around their throats. He's been at the mercy of this sort of doctor before, and it infuriates him that they're _doing this again_ , so soon after the experiments that they condemned.

He keeps his attention on the doctors, strangling them as slowly as he can without risking them setting off an alarm. Moira is staring at him, he knows, her free hand at her throat - this must remind her painfully of the day at the beach, where he would have killed her if not for Charles's intervention. He ignores her, ignores Emma, ignores everything except the gasps and weakening struggles of the men who _dare_ to call themselves _doctors_.

When they fall to the ground, he rips the door open, and Moira immediately goes to the bedside, checking Sean's wrist for a pulse. Emma waits in the doorway, in case someone approaches, and Erik goes for the chart at the end of the bed.

Its contents sicken him. The scientists have been cutting into Sean's throat to see if his mutation has physically changed his vocal cords, and there are plans, in the notes, to investigate his brain and lungs. Erik throws the chart aside and turns to the boy, grateful, at least, that he's sedated. Removing the medical equipment and the contraption around his head will be easier if he's not fighting them out of fear.

Moira already has the restraints off by the time Erik turns back to the bed. He turns his attention to the device the scientists have been using to keep Sean quiet - a scold's bridle. Erik's bile rises as he looks at the thing, a relic of the _fucking Dark Ages_ , not something that should be used on an eighteen-year-old kid who doesn't even know how to hate. He forces his hands to remain gentle as he snaps the locks keeping the straps closed, carefully peeling them back from Sean's skin. He _can't_ keep back the snarl that rises when he sees the reddened, abraded places where the leather cut too deeply.

As he lifts the leather and metal away, he can see blood in the corners of Sean's mouth. Beside him, Moira swears, quietly but violently. Together, they carefully get Sean's mouth open, and more blood trickles down his chin. Erik reaches out with his power to explore the metal thing in Sean's mouth, trying to work out where the injury is, and when the shape of the thing forms in his mind, he recoils.

"What is it?" Moira asks, her tone saturated with concern. She looks from him to Sean, swallowing hard. "What did they do?"

"The gag is spiked," Erik says, the words coming out sharp and almost crackling with anger. He glances over his shoulder at Emma, whose expression is schooled into a carefully blank mask. "Emma, keep him unconscious until we get to safety."

She nods, and Erik turns his attention back to the metal gag, manipulating it with touches of power, the gentlest thing he's done with his power in years. Sean's tongue is still bleeding sluggishly by the time Erik works the spiked gag free, but there isn't any _new_ damage, at least.

Erik looks at Moira, once Sean is freed of the medical equipment, and says, "Take him and go wait with Raven and the others. Emma and I will see to Charles."

He can see the conflict within her; she doesn't trust him, and she's right not to, but she knows that he'll do everything in his power to help Charles, just like he knows the same thing about her. He'd gladly have her by his side while they found Charles, if only because he knows her loyalty to Charles is absolute, but he needs Emma to lead him to where Charles is being kept. And he has a sinking suspicion that he'll need Emma once they're there, too; the fact that Charles is in a psychic dead zone is a worrying one. Erik's not sure what that sort of deprivation even _does_ to a telepath, and he's a little afraid to find out.

Eventually, Moira nods and gathers Sean in her arms, heading back to where the others are waiting. Once she's out of sight, Erik looks at Emma and asks flatly, "What am I going to be looking at?"

Her shrug is elegant and careless as always, but he can see the fear in her eyes as she replies, "It'll depend on whether they've managed to lock him in the dead zone. I've been sending my mind out to try to touch his, and I can't even get a vague sense of where he is."

A chill settles in Erik's stomach, and he says quietly, "He could be dead."

He's more relieved than he wants to admit when Emma shakes her head. "He's not dead. Trask is privy to some of their most top-level information - they want Xavier on their side. They just haven't found a way to ensure his loyalty yet. So they're keeping him subdued until they know more about the nature of his gift."

She _would_ be afraid of that; anything that can hurt Charles will hurt her too. Erik nods, gesturing for her to lead the way to the dead zone, and spends the walk there imagining several ways he could kill the men and women responsible for this travesty.

The room Emma leads them to is frighteningly like a laboratory, even more so than the one Sean was imprisoned in. Monitors line the walls, each one showing readouts that Erik can't make sense of, and there are cables and IVs and tubing feeding into the thing in the centre of the room that captures Erik's attention immediately and sends a wave of nausea through him.

It's a metal casket, a little over six feet long, perhaps two and a half feet wide, not quite two feet high. It’s only the wires and tubing connected to it, and the fact that the monitors are showing readings of _something_ , that stop Erik's instinctive reaction - that this is a coffin, and he's going to find Charles dead inside.

Emma winces as they approach the casket, looking as though she has a headache. Erik runs his hands over the top of the casket, looking for a release mechanism, a handle, _anything_ that will tell him how to get rid of the lid and get Charles _out_. He can't find anything, and his movements get increasingly agitated as he searches again, finally looking up at Emma in desperation.

"The other doctor's in the bathroom," Emma says, her eyes turning unfocused. "I'll take a walk."

The moments she spends in the human's mind are agonisingly long, and Erik spends them looking for anything else that will help, trying to make sense of the readouts. He doesn't dare use his power to rip the casket apart, in case he injures Charles - _more than you already have,_ a traitor part of his mind whispers spitefully.

Eventually, Emma's eyes focus again, and she walks to one of the computers and types rapidly. There's a hiss of air and the top of the casket begins to move aside, and Erik practically melds himself to its side, watching with bated breath to see what state Charles is in.

At first, he thinks Charles must be unconscious. He's not moving, and his eyes are closed. Leaning closer, though, Erik can hear rasping, barely-audible sounds coming from Charles's lips - pleas, he realises with a sinking heart. Pleas repeated often enough that Charles's voice has given out.

"How long?" he snaps at Emma, without taking his gaze off Charles's face. The lid slides back further, revealing the liquid Charles is floating in, the fact that the casket doesn't have enough room for him to move, much less turn over. Charles's skin is deathly pale, and he's lost weight - however long he has been in here, it's been _too long_.

"At least a week," Emma says, sounding horrified. "I can't - Magneto, I can't make sense of his thoughts, he's - it's been so long that he doesn't recognise other minds. He's-"

She breaks off, and Erik looks at her, surprised to see a stunned, sad expression on her face.

"He's _what_?"

"He's crying out for you," she says softly.

Erik looks back to Charles, floored. After everything, Charles is still reaching out for his mind? The implications - the idea that Charles _forgives_ him - are dizzying. He ignores them for now, forces himself to, because they can't afford to have him distracted until they're all safe.

"Tell Azazel to meet us at the elevator," he says shortly, carefully taking out the IV that the scientists have been using to keep Charles hydrated, taking off his cape and laying it on the floor. He lifts Charles out of the casket, wincing when he sees the way the muscles in Charles's legs have begun wasting already, and lays him on the cape, wrapping him in the crimson folds as gently as if he was swaddling a baby. Lifting Charles into his arms and standing, he settles the other man against his chest, looking at Emma and defying her to make any remark.

She just nods and leads the way back to the elevator.

This close, Erik can hear the words Charles is whispering. Names, over and over. Hank, Sean, Alex, Armando - and Erik. The cracked, broken sound of Charles's voice is tearing at him, and without thinking, he takes one of Charles's hands in his and walks faster. The sooner they get to the others at the elevator, the sooner they can get to safety.

Azazel, Janos, and Angel are waiting with Charles's students and Moira when Erik and Emma get to the elevator. Azazel and Janos are standing off to one side, looking a little uncomfortable, but Angel is beside Darwin, her hands hovering just shy of touching Alex's skin.

"Moira, Sean, Angel, Darwin and Alex first," Erik directs as he approaches. The least combat-useful - Moira and Darwin, at least in this situation - and the two unconscious students - and one of Erik's people, just in case. Azazel nods, putting his hands on Moira's and Darwin's shoulders and teleporting them with a smoky retort. Erik turns his attention to Janos, asking simply, "Did you take care of everyone?"

"And their records," Janos replies with a curt nod. Erik regrets that necessity - their records would have been invaluable in the fight to preserve mutantkind - but they just don't have the luxury of time to get the information out. And he's not going to send his people in here again, unless it's another rescue mission. Janos keeps the explanation at that, his usual laconic nature even more subdued by the rescue of their former enemies.

Azazel returns after a moment, looking to Erik for further directions. Erik glances at the remaining mutants - six of them, the upper limit of what Azazel has had to transport at once - and raises his eyebrows, silently asking Azazel if he thinks he can make another large jump so soon after the first. The red-skinned mutant considers and then nods, and Erik gestures for everyone to gather together.

Raven stays between Hank and the rest of them. Erik doesn't blame her. Hank is justifiably jumpy, and he doesn't want to unsettle him more than he already is. He holds Charles close to his chest, forcing himself not to snarl when Janos touches his shoulder to link him into Azazel's teleportation chain, and then they leave the facility behind in favour of Erik's compound.

The moment they're safely home, Erik gives more orders. "Emma, Moira, you're in charge of medical," he snaps. They don't have a dedicated doctor the way Charles does with Hank, but Emma has honed her telepathy to an art, and has skimmed off enough knowledge from several doctors to serve the purpose. Moira's presence should help calm Charles's students. He adds, "Janos, Azazel, patrol. I want to know the minute someone gets close enough to spit on our walls."

Janos and Azazel nod and leave the room quickly; Emma touches Moira's shoulder and leads the way to what must have been the infirmary, back when this was a school. Some judicious theft, the melting-down of some of the gold Erik acquired over the years, and Emma and Raven convincing more than a few people that they were either obscenely wealthy bank customers who required their money, or obscenely wealthy medical professionals who were outfitting a private clinic, have outfitted the infirmary with enough equipment that they can handle any day-to-day problem, and a good many problems that _aren't_ day-to-day. Emma is still no Hank, but she's effective.

Halfway to the infirmary, Erik notices that Raven isn't with them. He figures quickly enough that, since Hank had seemed reasonably uninjured, Raven has decided to take him to one of the private rooms instead of subjecting him to the infirmary. It's a reasonable decision, not one that Erik disagrees with; he makes a note to check on them both later, but leaves it for now.

Moira and Emma take charge, once they reach the infirmary. Alex and Sean are the primary concern, that much is evident. Charles seems uninjured, but the damage that was done to his psyche - Erik doesn't know how bad it is, or what to do to repair it. He settles for setting Charles carefully on one of the beds away from where Emma is trying to work out what to do for Alex, sitting beside it and unconsciously reaching out to take Charles's hand.

Charles is still mouthing names, trying to speak in a voice screamed silent, and Erik feels something tearing at his heart, watching Charles's lips shape the soundless syllables of his name. Without even thinking about it, he reaches up and takes off his helmet, setting it to one side. He takes Charles's hands and places them on either side of his head, thinking that perhaps Charles needs the contact, and whispers, "I'm here."

_«ErikErikErikErik **silence** pleaseErik»_

Charles's psychic voice explodes into Erik's head, making him reel from the sheer force of it, from the pain and fear and desperation that permeate it almost tangibly. He tightens his hands on Charles's, keeping both their hands against his head, and grits his teeth against the pain, sending as much reassurance and comfort as he can back through to Charles.

"I'm here. I'm right here. You're not alone," he chokes out. He can't see Charles's face through the film of tears in his eyes, though whether they're from pain or something else he can't say. He keeps his hands on Charles's, holding onto him as though he never wants to let go, and keeps concentrating on meeting Charles's psychic projections of silence and fear and loneliness with comfort, reassurance, anything he can think of to make Charles calm down.

He loses track of time. He's dimly aware of Emma and Moira working not ten feet away from him, discussing what to do for Sean and whether having Alex outside to burn off when he wakes up would work, but all of Erik's attention is focused on Charles, on the psychic voice in his head begging him not to leave Charles alone, not to let them put him back in the dark and the silence. He keeps Charles's hands pressed against his head and whispers reassurances and promises, and he's not sure whether the tears he's crying are his or Charles's.

_«Erik, Erik - so alone, so silent, please don't let me go back there Erik, please, please stay, stay with me stay»_

"Shh," Erik whispers, and leans down to kiss Charles softly, Moira's and Emma's presence be damned. He sets one of Charles's hands on his chest to free his own hand, using it to cradle the side of Charles's face, an unconscious mirror of the way he has Charles's other hand pressed against the side of his head, and murmurs, "I'm here. I'll stay. I promise."


	2. Sunburned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the rescue, there is still a lot of healing to be done. Angel and Darwin take it on themselves to help Alex through his recovery.

Hot. Too hot, the ferocious heat of the sun burning in his veins and bones. He can feel it surging with each heartbeat, fighting to get closer to the surface of his skin, to escape, explode, destroy. So much force contained in so frail a shell of human flesh and human skin, and he doesn't know how he's supposed to hold it all.

There's a voice, somewhere between his ears and his mind, telling him to let go, to burn off. He can't. Darwin's face hovers in front of his eyes, even when they're closed, and he knows that if he burns off, he'll never see that face again except in nightmares. They want him to hurt, to destroy. They want to make him into a weapon. Or maybe they just want him to hurt Darwin because it will hurt _him_ to do it.

Hands on his arms make him scream. It feels as though the flesh is being compressed, pushed into the fire, the skin crisping and turning black from the heat. He can't see his own skin through the haze, like the heat-haze that hangs above the road in the summer, can't see who it is that's touching him.

He's laid down, the pressure of lying on his back making him sob with pain. And then there are cool hands on his forehead and someone starts putting cold cloths with odd, bumpy protuberances in them against his neck and shoulders and sides, and they soothe his skin a little. They bring the fever down enough that he can understand, barely, when a voice that's deep and high mixed together talks to him.

The voice says two different things at once, and that's strange; he forces his eyes open for a moment, trying to decipher why it sounds so odd, and sees dark skin to his left, a fall of dark hair to his right. He winces and closes his eyes again; none of it makes sense. He listens to the voice, though, as it breaks through the fever-fog in his mind, strangely familiar and so very, very precious in a way he doesn't understand.

"You need to burn off, Alex," it says, as more hands lay a cold cloth over his forehead, covering his eyes and making the hot ache recede a little. "You're outside. You're not going to hurt anyone."

He shakes his head, a choked moan catching in his throat as the movement makes it feel as though the skin of his neck is tearing, stretched too tight and hot. He can't burn off, even if he _is_ outside. Not like this. Without his suit, without the device Hank made for him, he's got too much inside him to be able to control the blasts. The voice begs him, and he whimpers a protest, because he doesn't _like_ making the voice sound like that, desperate and terrified, but he _can't_. He can't control it.

The weight of something made of metal on his chest makes him scream again, but as soon as he realises what it is -- the chestplate, being strapped to him as gently as they can, their hands almost hesitating to touch him -- he almost starts sobbing with relief. There are hands gently stroking through his hair, others pressing cool cloths against his neck, and the voice urges him to let go, to burn off and let himself get better.

The release of energy, when he finally lets himself believe that he won't hurt anyone, is so intense that it hurts, like the chestplate is drawing out every bit of fire in his bones and the fire is trying to stay in him, digging claws into his veins. He screams as the blasts are torn from him over and over, his vision blacking behind the heat-haze.

Eventually, the energy is gone, and he lies limp on the ground, feeling too weak to move. The hands are still in his hair and against his face, and the voice whispers, "You did good, Alex. Rest. You'll be okay."

Comforted by its dual tone, he lets himself drift into unconsciousness.

 

 

Alex can feel someone in his head as he wakes up, and he's pretty sure it's _not_ the Professor. That assumption turns into a certainty when he "hears" a quiet female voice saying, _«You're safe, Alex. You haven't hurt anyone. You've burned off your excess energy, and you won't let loose without meaning to. Darwin is fine. Be calm.»_

He struggles to open his eyes, finding even that much a challenge, but it's worth it when he manages it and sees Darwin and Angel both sitting by his bedside. He feels like _shit_ , but he doesn't feel like his blood is on fire anymore, and he can at least focus, albeit not very _well_. Angel has one of his hands in both of hers, and Darwin's hand is resting on Alex's leg, as though he's assuring them both that they’re in one piece.

"What happened?" Alex asks, alarmed at how weak his voice is. He blinks at Angel, adding, "Aren't we on the wrong side?"

"Truce was declared," Darwin replies, as Angel bites her lip. Alex feels a bit bad for making her uncomfortable, but it was a valid question, he thinks. Darwin continues, "Lehnsherr and his people came for us."

"We don't _want_ to fight you," Angel says softly. "Shaw - I can't explain it, not in a way that'll make sense. But Magneto doesn't want us to fight you. You're safe here."

Alex pulls himself upright, wincing at the way it makes his head spin, struggling with the idea of having a _truce_ with the people who helped Shaw kill Darwin. But Darwin's right there, and it's kind of hard to stay angry with the people who rescued them. Alex isn't sure what he'd've done if the sick fucks who took them had managed to force him to unleash his power on Darwin again, but he _knows_ that he wouldn't be lying here -- in his own bed, but in a freaking hospital gown -- feeling like crap but in one piece.

"Sean?" he asks, remembering the hideous bridle he'd seen on the younger boy's head.

Darwin smiles, but it's a tight, unconvincing smile. He says, "They're fixing him up. His voice is going to be messed-up for a while, until he heals, but he'll be okay."

Alex's stomach sinks, and he shakes his head. Sean won't be okay. None of them will be _okay_. He'd thought Erik's betrayal was absolute and unforgivable, but that was before humans took them and tried to make him kill Darwin _again_. He only suffered three weeks of torment, if his timekeeping is right; Erik suffered _years_ , and both of them suffered in the name of fear and persecution. How can he hate Erik for hating humans when he's pretty sure he feels the same way right now?

"Who's the chick in my head?" he asks, distracting himself from that disturbing line of thought. He's supposed to be one of Charles's guys, not thinking that maybe the Brotherhood, whatever it is these days, might have the right idea.

"Ms. Frost put a telepathic message in for you, so you wouldn't panic when you woke up properly," Angel explains. "You've been delirious for a few days, but you-"

"Frost?" Alex interrupts, pulling away from them. "The telepath? You let her _in my head_?"

"We didn't have a choice," Darwin says quietly. "You weren't making any sense. We couldn't get through to you. You just kept begging us to let you self-destruct instead of hurting anyone. Angel and I barely got you to burn off in time, and we had to get your chestplate on for you to even _think_ about it."

Alex looks down at his hands, strangely reddened against the white of the soft sheets. It looks like he has a sunburn, and now that he thinks about it, it _feels_ like he has a sunburn. His skin feels hot and tight, and he has a strange, giddying image of his skin shrinking in the wash like a cheap wool sweater. He lets out a half-hysterical giggle, and then there are hands on his again, cool against the heat of his blood and bone.

"Alex," Darwin says, his tone intent. "Alex, man, look at me, okay?"

He forces his gaze up, and Darwin and Angel are still sitting there, and they're both okay. His eyes go to Angel's arm, where her wing lies close to the skin, and he can see a line where his blasts ripped part of her wing away. She follows his gaze and gives him a bit of a smile, letting her wings flick up so he can see that they're whole. He can see the line of scarring, but it looks like the wing has grown back, and that means he didn't destroy an integral part of her. That means it's okay.

He coughs and looks down, embarrassed by the tears in his eyes, and keeps his eyes locked on the sheets over his knees until he thinks he can handle looking at them without crying. He looks up at Darwin then, searching the other man's face for any sign of what the scientists did to him.

Darwin seems to understand what he can't ask, and shrugs. "They couldn't do much," he says, a little awkwardly, like he's _ashamed_ of it. "Couldn't even take blood after the first time; the needles broke off instead of going in. They'd take me out of the cell when they took you away, took me to some laboratory set-up, but I don't think they really knew what to do with me."

Alex shudders, thinking about the cell. It had been worse than solitary, which had at least had the benefit of ensuring everyone else's safety; the cell he and Darwin had been shoved into hadn’t had that. He doesn't remember all of it - coherent memory was the first thing to be burnt out by the fire in his veins - but he remembers enough to have him trembling, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his face in his knees, ignoring the way the pressure makes his skin hurt.

 _The first day, he wakes up already in the sun. He remembers the fight at the mansion, hearing Sean's aborted sonic scream and dropping his gardening tools and running back toward the mansion, the sting of a tranquiliser dart in his neck and the sickening sinking sensation as the drug hits. And then he wakes up with sun in his face, and he can feel the ropes around his wrists and ankles, tied to stakes buried deep in the ground, holding him immobile._

 _He lets off a blast, trying to direct it enough to help free himself, and there's the sound of cracking glass and someone swearing. He's hauled off the ground by armed guards, dragged back inside a facility that he only really sees glimpses of, between his captors' bodies. Concrete walls and tiled floors, overly-bright fluorescent lights, too many men and women in white coats._

 _He's hurried past them and into an elevator, shoved against the wall with a baton hard against his throat while they go down one floor, dragged out into what looks like a claustrophobe's nightmare. The entire place is concrete and metal, lights literally set into the concrete roof, and he's dragged through enough doorways to figure out that the walls are all at least a foot thick. He's seen enough maximum-security places to know a containment area when he sees one._

 _At first, he thinks the cell they take him into is a simple, empty concrete box. And then they lift the trapdoor and he realises where they intend to put him. He fights them as much as he can, but he's still groggy from the drugs, and they outnumber him. They kick his legs out from under him, and they drop him into a cell that he can barely move in._

 _When the trapdoor closes, the cell is entirely dark. He explores its confines with his fingertips, mapping out lengths and widths by hand-spans. He's got less than two feet front and back, a little more on each side. His questing fingers find an aperture in front of him, and he frowns, testing it. He can reach through, press his shoulder to the sides of the aperture and stretch his arm all the way through without touching anything on the other side. He can feel metal all around him, cold, holding the chill of being buried beneath the ground, and reflective._

 _For the first several hours, they leave him there. He doesn't get used to the dark, but he can close his eyes and lean against the wall behind him and pretend he's just in solitary, a whole ten feet square instead of this tiny coffin. His legs begin to ache, but he shifts enough that most of his weight is on his back against the wall, rather than his feet. He begins to think that if this is all they have in store for him, he might get through this._

 _And then they drag him out again, but the courtyard is different this time. Instead of staking him to the ground, they tie him to an upright pole, like he's about to be burned at the stake. The sun is up, blazing bright in the sky, getting in his eyes when they finish tying him. There's a guard sitting directly across from where he's tied, looking **bored**._

 _At the end of the second hour, with the energy from the sun burning in his veins, Alex narrows his eyes at the guard, whose expression has not changed from boredom the whole time. He'd feel bad about hurting the guy, but **he's** one of the people keeping Alex tied up here. He cast his lot._

 _They tranquilise him again before the second blast finishes its destruction, and this time when he wakes up, he can hear Darwin talking to him from what he realises is another cell, attached to his by that metal-lined aperture. And the next day, when they drag him out into the courtyard, there's another pole set up opposite his, and Sean is tied to it, with an archaic-looking contraption strapped around his head to keep a gag firmly in his mouth._

 _Alex loses track of time. Unable to burn off, the energy that normally fuels his blasts stays in his system, and as the days pass and the energy builds up, time begins to blur strangely. He's so hot, everything feels stifling and he can feel the heat burning in his skin, like he's running a fever that should have him combusting. He's always run hotter than most people, it's a side effect of his power according to Hank, but he's never felt like this, except in the horrible days before his mutation manifested and he nearly destroyed everything._

 _He can hear Darwin, urging him to reach through the aperture and touch his hand, telling him that he's really there and he can help Alex if Alex just lets him, but he can't. He can't touch Darwin and risk burning him up in the heat of a small sun that's coursing through Alex. He's had to watch Darwin burn up once already, and he doesn't think he can do it again. So he can't touch him. He just has to close his eyes and rest his forehead against metal that's warm now, rather than the cool that it was - how long ago? - and let the energy burn him up inside. Better him than anyone else._

The bed dips a bit, and then there are cool arms wrapped around his shoulders, and a gentle hand stroking his hair, another rubbing his back in exactly the right way to comfort rather than irritate the reddened skin. He can smell Angel on his left, the spicy perfume she likes to wear, and the hand in his hair feels small and delicate, like hers; he can feel Darwin's reassuring weight on his right, and the hand rubbing his back is long-fingered and elegant like Darwin's. Alex lets them touch him but doesn't uncurl, sobbing into his knees until the sheets are soaked and he can taste salt in his mouth.

He's dimly aware of Angel singing, something soft and slow in a language Alex doesn't understand. Darwin is murmuring nonsense under the lyric sound of her voice, a deeper tone of comfort interweaving with her alto. He realises vaguely that the sound is familiar, the dual tone of their voices intermingling, and he realises that they were the voice that talked him into burning off, when his mind was too feverish to understand that it was safe. Slowly, the sounds of them, the feel of their arms and hands, the way they just sit with their shoulders touching his, bracing him between them like they can protect him from the world, begins to seep through the wrenching sobs tearing at him.

"You're safe," Angel whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to his temple, so soft that he knows she's afraid that touching him too much will set him off again. On his other side, Darwin's arm is covering Alex's, wrapped around his knees, and Darwin's thumb is brushing lightly over the back of Alex's hand, gently coaxing his fingers to unclench. Alex looks up enough to see their hands on his arm, and their skin looks strange against his. He's used to being the pale one, but now his skin is almost the same colour as Azazel's.

"Come on, man," Darwin murmurs, still rubbing Alex's hand gently. "You're safe, Alex. You're safe, and you didn't hurt anyone. You didn't hurt me. I'm in the same indestructible piece."

"They wanted me to kill you," Alex chokes, and for a brief, horrible moment, the tears on his cheeks feel like boiling water, and he almost expects Darwin and Angel's hands on him to char and turn to ash.

"You didn't," Angel says firmly, kissing Alex's temple again. "You held on. You were so brave. We're very proud of you, Alex."

He lets out a hiccuping laugh, the terror receding a little. The mattress moves again as Angel gets up; Alex looks over at her, wondering why she's leaving. She doesn't go far, though; only to the counter lining one wall, where she picks up a large jar before returning to the bed, sitting beside him again.

"Your skin's still sensitive," she explains, unscrewing the jar's lid and scooping out a fingerful of some sort of thick, off-white cream. She reaches out to smear it over his arm, and he lets out a startled yelp at the shock of its coolness. The shock is quickly replaced by relief, though, as the anaesthetic agent in the cream begins to soothe his overheated skin.

Darwin pulls back a little, saying, "Let us help, okay? Moira and Ms. Frost think you're still going to be a bit off-colour for a while." He cracks a bit of a grin, almost tentative. "Besides, we took care of it for you while you were delirious. Nothing we haven't seen by now."

If it had been anyone but Angel and Darwin, Alex would have refused. _Especially_ if it had been Sean or Moira. But he and Darwin had got close easily, and he'd always respected Angel's no-excuses attitude, so he doesn't mind it from them. He lets Darwin help him get out of the hospital gown and turns onto his stomach to let them work, reassured by Darwin's hand on his shoulder and another kiss from Angel.

Whatever the lotion is, it feels _fantastic_ against his skin. He rests his chin on his folded arms, relaxing slowly as they smooth the cream over his back, the muscles relaxing almost perceptibly. He flushes a little when Angel begins to work on his legs, but her hands are firm and gentle and very professional, and the treatment just feels too good to protest.

He _does_ protest when they stop, but Darwin chuckles, saying, "We just need you to turn over, Al."

They shift on the bed, and Alex ends up sitting up, leaning back against Darwin's chest with the older mutant's arms loosely around his waist. It's oddly comforting, being held like this, and Alex can feel himself relaxing even more, feeling actually _safe_ for the first time since the attack. Darwin and Angel resume their treatment, Darwin rubbing the lotion into Alex's shoulders and chest while Angel concentrates on his legs.

By the time Angel's hands are stroking over his thighs, Alex is leaning into Darwin's arms, feeling oddly limp and boneless. It's a _nice_ feeling, though, especially compared with the way he'd been feeling for the last -- however long it was. Darwin's hand is splayed carelessly over Alex's stomach, his thumb absently brushing over Alex's hipbone. One of his legs is cocked up beside Alex, and Alex is a little surprised to realise that he's had his hand on Darwin's leg for some time, wrapped as far around Darwin's calf as it will go.

"You're safe now," Darwin murmurs, and his skin is cool against Alex's but his breath feels enticingly warm as it puffs over the side of Alex's neck. "You didn't hurt anyone. You were strong."

"You _are_ strong," Angel whispers, her hands stilling on his legs. "You fought through it."

"I want you."

For a moment after the words slip out, Alex is surprised. But he shouldn't be, not really; he and Darwin have had a bond for a long time, and they'd always liked Angel. She'd reached out to Darwin when she left for a reason. The betrayal still hurts, but she came to rescue them, that has to count for something. And he finds that the idea of _not_ having the closeness that they used to is almost physically painful.

He can feel Darwin and Angel glancing at each other. They seem to come to some sort of an accord, because Angel moves further up the bed, leaning in to kiss Alex gently. She tastes like coffee and sugar, and he's aware that she and Darwin have both been pulling too many hours, sitting at his bedside.

She doesn’t kiss him for long. They're all exhausted, and Alex is still fevered. He doesn’t expect much to happen, and he's not really surprised when Darwin moves behind him and helps him lie down again, with Darwin and Angel lying down on either side of him.

"When you're feeling better," Darwin promises, kissing his temple lightly. "There's plenty of time. We're not going anywhere."


	3. Muted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the rescue, Sean wakes with Janos keeping watch over him, and finds out that his former enemy has more in common with him, right now, than Sean would have guessed.

_They attack while he's in the downstairs den, cleaning up from last night's movie night. Alex spilled popcorn on the floor during one of the scary parts of the movie, and Sean and Darwin teased him mercilessly about squealing like a girl for the rest of the night. Sean's grumbling now, on his knees by the couch, gathering spilled popcorn from the floor. He glances up at the armchair by the window, the armchair none of them will use. It's still covered with a soft grey blanket, with a battered paperback beside it; it's Raven's favourite chair on rainy days. None of them have had the heart to fold up the blanket and put the book away._

 _He doesn't look up when he hears the footsteps, until he realises that there are at least three different sets of feet and all are in boots. Hank doesn't wear shoes much these days, and that leaves only **two** other people who make footsteps. Sean twists around on his knees and sees the men in camouflage, pointing weapons at him. He draws breath to let out a sonic scream, not so much to defend himself as to warn the others, and one of the men fires._

 _The dart hits him in the throat, aborting the scream. Numbness spreads through his limbs alarmingly fast, and he topples onto his side, struggling to call his power forth again, to fight, to do **anything**._

 _It's not like in the stories. There's no merciful loss of consciousness, not with what he's coming to realise is a paralytic, not a sedative. He's hauled out of the mansion like a rolled-up carpet, over to a waiting van, all the while screaming psychic warnings at the Professor, hoping one of them will make it in time._

 _The man waiting by the van looks at Sean's eyes and sighs, exasperated._

 _"Did none of you consider that he could be warning the psychic?" he asks flatly. He turns to the van and retrieves what looks like a first-aid kit, taking out a syringe and tapping it to release any air bubbles._

 _Sean keeps shouting in his mind as the man jabs the needle into his arm. This time, it **is** like the stories; he manages to fight unconsciousness long enough to see them dragging a snarling, fighting Hank from the mansion, yanking him around on a stiffened metal leash like you would with a wild animal, before darkness takes him._

 _"…taken precautions to prevent…"_

 _"…more long-term measures eventually, but for now…"_

 _They're talking over him as he drifts in twilight sleep, aware but not lucid. For a minute he thinks maybe he drifted off at the dentist, but there's something cold and heavy in his mouth, pressing down on his tongue, and dentists don't use gags, do they?_

 _"…possible that it's in the lungs, but that seems…"_

 _"…scans aren't revealing anything abnormal. It's possible they won't unless he's actively…"_

 _Memory returns. He forces himself to stay silent and still, even as the twilight sleep begins to lift; the more they say while they think he's unconscious, the more he'll **know**._

 _"…first step is to ascertain the nature of the mutation," one of the white-coated figures standing around his bed says, reaching for a chart. "Lang wants to know how he generates sonic energy."_

 _The other figure - not a doctor, Sean refuses to call them doctors - nods, and murmurs, "Examination of the vocal cords would be the obvious first step. I'll book an OR."_

 _Sean's intentions of keeping still and gathering as much information as he can are shattered when the implications of that sentence sink in. The metal gag in his mouth punctures his tongue as he tries to scream._

 

 

 _'This is a muscle, like any other. You can control it.'_

Muscles left alone for too long atrophy. He's seen it before, when Mom had to take him with her on her palliative care rounds and he met a woman who'd been bedridden for months. She'd lost muscle tone and seemed somehow _withered_ , and the part of Sean that's fighting its way back to consciousness is terrified that he's going to end up the same way.

There's a gentle hand on his shoulder, patting awkwardly, and the steady, regular beeping of some sort of medical monitor. Sean can feel bandages around his wrists and elbows, where his struggling made the leather straps break the skin. His throat and tongue hurt, but it's a distant, vague sort of pain.

Eventually, he manages to open his eyes, blinking groggily at the young man sitting next to the bed. The dark-haired guy who'd been throwing wind at them, the last time Sean knew. One of the guys working with Mr. Lehnsherr.

That's confusing, and he doesn't have it in him to think about it too much right now. He opens his mouth, trying to speak, and the guy's hand tightens on his shoulder, his expression turning rueful, and he shakes his head, saying in a quiet - _too_ quiet, like maybe he's in pain - voice, "Don't try to speak yet. You aren't healed enough."

…well, this is going to be _fun_. Sean lets out a huffy sigh, flopping back against the pillows, and wonders how he's supposed to ask for a glass of water.

A light tap on his shoulder makes him look at the guy again, who's holding a notepad and pen, his expression almost ridiculously earnest. He's got pretty handwriting, Sean thinks absently as he takes the notepad in clumsy hands, frowning down at the message.

 _'My name is Janos. You're safe now. Ms. MacTaggert is with Professor Xavier, and will be back soon, but she didn't want you to wake alone.'_

That makes sense, he supposes. Ms. MacTaggert and Professor Xavier had been almost as close as Professor Xavier and Mr. Lehnsherr, so it makes perfect sense that she'd be with him. Sean doesn't know what they'd been doing to the Professor, but if it was anything like what they'd been doing to _him_ , he probably needs all the people around that he can get.

He shudders a little, forcing himself to stop thinking about the doctors, and scribbles his own message, his handwriting significantly _less_ pretty than Janos's.

 _'Can I have some water?'_

Janos nods and gets to his feet, bringing over a carafe and a plastic cup. It's probably a good idea not to let him have glass yet -- the way his hands are shaking, it'd be bound to go poorly -- but Sean can't help feeling a brief spike of resentment at the thought of being treated like a child. So he's the youngest; that doesn't mean he's going to fall to pieces. He can cope with this. He has to.

Janos hands him the cup, three-quarters filled with water, and sits by the bed again, seeming content to just wait and be silent company to assure Sean that he's not alone. And maybe that'd work with one of the others, but Sean has always been what his mother affectionately termed a chatterbox, and it's kind of nerve-wracking, not to be able to say what pops into his head.

He grabs the notepad again and writes down a barrage of questions. When he hands it back to Janos, the other mutant raises his eyebrows as he reads, looking amused, and then spends a while writing down his reply.

 _'Alex is all right. Angel and Armando convinced him to burn off and his fever is coming down. You can see him when either of you are ready to get out of bed; he's recovering, but he's still weak, and you shouldn't be walking around yet according to Emma.'_

Well. Good. Not good that he's apparently stuck in bed until further notice, but he's relieved that Alex is doing all right. He'd hated being stuck out there without even being able to talk to him, and he _knows_ that they were basically using him to keep Alex from being able to bleed off any of his power. The thought makes him sick, and he forces his attention back to Janos's curving writing.

 _'Darwin is physically unharmed, and I think he's coping emotionally by helping Alex.'_

Also good. Sean might not be the most observant guy around but he'd have to have been _blind_ not to notice the way Alex and Darwin touch each other more than they touch anyone else. The team had been kind of worried about Alex going off the deep end after Darwin died, and then _nobody_ had seen Alex or Darwin for three days after Darwin reappeared, so… well, he's not surprised that Darwin is with Alex right now. He's not really surprised that Darwin's physically fine, either. If Shaw couldn't kill him for good, no two-bit scientists are going to do it.

 _'Raven is looking after Hank. His trauma is more emotional than physical, and she is best-equipped to help him.'_

 _That_ makes Sean frown. Not that Raven's looking after Hank, which is about as surprising as Darwin looking after Alex or Ms. MacTaggert being with the Professor, but the emotional part. Hank's always been kind of fragile emotionally, and Sean is kind of worried, now. He can think of all sorts of horrible things that the scientists might have done to a guy who looks like Hank.

His hands are shaking. He frowns at them, trying to force them to be still, and then Janos's hand is on his shoulder again, squeezing gently, offering wordless comfort. Sean seizes on the most immediate, distracting topic, and scribbles _'Why aren't you talking? You did before. Is there something wrong with you?'_

Janos is obviously taken aback, and just as obviously shoving his instinctive reaction aside out of some sort of deference for Sean's current state. Sean feels a bit guilty for asking, now, especially when Janos pulls his hand back, and for a minute he thinks the other mutant is going to get up and leave.

Instead, Janos takes the notepad back and writes, his expression frustratingly unreadable. He's worse than Mr. Lehnsherr, Sean thinks irritably.

 _'A side-effect,'_ Janos explains, lifting one hand and making a little swirling motion with it, like he's calling a whirlwind, even though the air remains still. _'Nobody's sure of the biological mechanism, but the same thing that makes me able to breathe within my whirlwinds means that proper speech is difficult, sometimes painful.'_ "I can't create enough vocal force to be loud," he adds, in that too-quiet - and now that Sean's actually listening, tense and pained - voice.

That sounds weird, and complicated, and like it must be frustrating. Sean _wants_ to be sensitive and not prod any further, but his hands are traitors and write down more questions anyway.

 _'I only started getting sonic when I was fourteen. Did your voice happen when you got your power?'_

Janos smiles, a little ruefully, and Sean feels bad all over again. Before Janos can take the notepad back, he scribbles, _'Sorry. You don't have to answer.'_

Janos lifts a shoulder in an elegant shrug, reclaiming the notepad and writing his own message.

 _'I don't mind. You're the first person to ask, that's all.'_

Sean blinks at him. The first? He can't be the _first_. Janos is what, in his twenties? How can Sean be the _first_ person to ask about his voice?

Janos has been writing while Sean puzzled over that little problem, and he hands the pad back, refilling Sean's cup as Sean reads.

 _'Shaw didn't much care as long as I was useful. Azazel thought I just didn't speak English at first, he spent **weeks** trying to figure out what languages I understood. Emma said that if I felt like telling her she'd listen, but she never really prodded._

 _'I was sixteen. Late, according to Shaw, but I think he knew less about mutation than he wanted to admit. My parents let me go with him in return for him promising to have doctors look into my "little problem". All anyone ever figured out was that I have some paralysis in my vocal cords. Nothing severe enough to cause breathing problems, but it makes speaking painful, and more effort than it's usually worth.'_

Sean frowns at the words, willing them to make more sense. Concentrating on the science behind it is easier than listening to the little voice in his head that says maybe _he's_ not going to be able to speak much, either, if he even gets his voice back. For someone like Sean, whose power is in his voice and who has never spent a single day silent in his life, the thought is terrifying, and he can see the notepad shaking as his hands start trembling again.

Janos takes the notepad from him, covers Sean's hands with his own long-fingered ones, and says, in the quiet, damaged voice that terrifies Sean with its implications, "You will heal. Have faith."

He shouldn't feel so comforted by a guy who was trying to kill him two years ago. He shouldn't feel comforted at _all_ , not with a hole in his tongue and stitches in his throat.

He should be able to hold it together.

He's telling his mind that, but his mind doesn't want to listen. His mind is busy telling him that fuck it, he's nineteen and no nineteen-year-old should have to figure out how to cope with having been abducted and had _exploratory surgery_ done on his throat, even without the added "we're going to use you to torture one of your best friends" or the "here, have a fucking scold's bridle to keep you quiet" or the "all of your friends are going through shit just as bad as this and you can't do anything about it". He shouldn't have to deal with any of it, and there's a part of him that's completely, blindingly angry. He's never been that angry before, and it scares him.

He's shaking, and there are wet spots on his hands. He can't figure out where they came from, and for a moment he's terrified that they're blood, some sort of blood that's been washed clear, and his hands fly up to his throat, scrabbling at the bandages.

Janos wraps his hands around Sean's wrists and pulls them away from the bandages, his grip gentle but firm. Sean can hear himself letting out choked, harsh sobbing sounds, more like the sounds of a trapped, dying animal than anything a human should be making. He can't breathe properly. It feels like there's a swelling in his throat, like his vocal cords are swelling closed, cutting off air and speech, and he can feel himself starting to heave with the effort to breathe, wrenching his diaphragm.

"Hush. Breathe."

The voice is soft, and that scares him, but he can't remember _why_ it scares him. There's a gentle hand rubbing his back in smooth, strong motions, like it's forcing him to breathe slower, pushing the air up and out of his lungs and holding for a moment before letting him inhale. Another is wrapped around both of his hands, holding them in his lap, warm and reassuring outside the panic.

"You will heal."

So much effort in those three words. Sean clings to the hand wrapped around his, trying to calm down, trying to breathe, trying not to need the words he can barely hear over his own harsh sobbing. It's not fair of him to need them, not when they cost so much, but he can't deal with silence.

"The damage is to your tongue and the flesh of your throat, not your larynx or vocal cords."

Explanations. He lets them sink in, lets them penetrate the haze of fear, and something loosens in his chest, an intangible chunk of fear breaking free. The hand still rubbing his back pushes it up and out with his breath, and he can breathe a little easier.

"You will speak again."

The pain in those words - physical and emotional, and _God_ , it must kill Janos to have to soothe someone freaking out over speech when he has so much trouble with it - makes Sean look up. Janos is still rubbing his back, still holding onto his hands, and gives Sean a small, tired, sympathetic smile.

"I know your fear," he says, and Sean can see how much it's hurting him to talk. He opens his mouth to tell Janos to stop, that he doesn't have to hurt himself to comfort Sean, but Janos shakes his head and says softly, "I felt it, when I was sixteen. I understand. But you will heal. I promise."

Sean frees one of his hands and snags the notepad, scribbling a message and holding it out to Janos.

 _'We'll find a way for you, too. Hank's a genius, he'll figure something out.'_

Janos's smile turns a little sad, and he reaches out to gently stroke the side of Sean's head, where his hair is beginning to grow back as stubble, bright orange against his pale skin. Seemingly having used up all his speech for the time being, he takes the notepad back.

 _'You're sweet. Don't worry about me. Focus on your own healing.'_

 _'I'll do better if I focus on yours, too,'_ Sean writes stubbornly, jutting his chin out in determination. It's at least partly true; his tagging along with his mother on her hospice visits instilled a sort of caretaker instinct in him. He feels better, and validated, when he's helping someone get better.

Janos's lips quirk in an odd little smile, and Sean feels somehow vindicated in having made the man smile. Janos reclaims the notepad, decorating it with more of his pretty, curving handwriting.

 _'A bargain, then. We heal together. Yes?'_

It’s a bargain Sean can deal with. He still doesn't get why Mr. Lehnsherr's people are helping - well, no, that's a lie. Mr. Lehnsherr's people are helping because Mr. Lehnsherr is a dick but he still _cares_ about them. Sean sometimes thinks that Mr. Lehnsherr left _because_ he cares about them and he didn't want to see them - see the Professor - turn hard and cold, the way he had to.

Sometimes Sean thinks too much, he decides, giving Janos a weaker version of his usual smile and offering a hand, to shake on the deal. He knows he must look like a mess, with tears streaking his cheeks and his head shaved like he just had brain surgery, but he feels stronger than he did when he woke up. Maybe having someone who understands helps.

They shake on it, and Janos pets his head again, in a gesture that manages to be comforting instead of condescending.

They sit in silence for a while, but it's a comfortable silence instead of a terrifying one. Eventually, Janos cocks his head like he's listening to something, and then picks up the notepad again.

 _'Emma has just told me - Ms. MacTaggert is on her way to check on you. You should sleep, once she's been. I'll bring you something to eat later.'_

Sean cocks an eyebrow, giving Janos a _Look_ , and the older man laughs. It's a weird laugh, almost soundless, more like a gust of wind than a laugh, but Sean kind of likes it. Janos says in a hoarse whisper, "Yes, I'll eat too," and Sean smiles.

Fixing someone else while they fix him. He can handle that.


	4. Caged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Brotherhood's lair, Raven tries to help Hank begin healing after the abduction. CHAPTER WARNINGS: sexual assault

_He's in the kitchen when they attack. They've done a good job of making themselves smell like nothing, and that's what tips him off; nothing smells like **nothing**. He turns in time to take the tranquiliser dart in the forearm instead of the chest, and he lets out an enraged roar, letting the chopping board and vegetables fall, rushing at the men in camouflage._

 _Too late, he realises that their placement was a trap, as another man steps smoothly out behind him and loops a heavy noose around his neck, the sort of collar and stiffened leash that animal control use to control feral cats. He roars again, lashing out at them, terrified that they're going to find the others and hurt them._

 _It takes three of them to drag him outside, clawing at any of them who manage to get close enough. He sees a cluster of men near a van and a flash of red hair that can only be Sean, and he fights harder, snarling in fury when he sees Sean fall._

 _By the time they manage to wear him down enough to stick him with the tranquilisers again, the first dose having barely touched the edges, he's seen them bring out Darwin and the Professor, both unconscious. They must have caught Darwin unawares, before his body could adapt; Hank has noticed that there's a transition period where Darwin is vulnerable. He fights the tranquilisers long enough to see Sean, Darwin and Charles loaded into black vans, and then the soldiers holding him swear and inject him a third time, and he's gone._

 _He wakes in a tiny cell, barely large enough for him to take six steps before hitting the wall. It's sterile, clean, too white._

 _They've taken his clothing. Cold isn't a problem, not with the fur that he's finally started getting used to, but it still feels like a violation. He spends the first few hours of consciousness in a corner of the cell, trying to remind himself how to breathe._

 _They leave him alone, absolutely alone, for what he **thinks** is two days. He paces, examining the walls inch by inch. There's a surveillance camera, high in one corner, and a small drain set in the centre of the floor; both of those things unsettle him._

 _By the time he sees the first orderly, it's been long enough that he's light-headed from hunger and thirst. The orderly slides a tray into the cell from the decontamination room outside, and is gone before Hank can even think of trying to speak to him._

 _The water is in a plastic bowl, the sort of thing you'd use to give a dog water. He looks at it for several long moments, struggling with his pride, and then picks it up and drinks, absurdly thankful that the fur hides the shamed flush that he can practically feel spreading across his skin._

 _They talk to each other while they're taking samples. The first time he fights, but after a dose of tranquilisers that gives him a headache for the next day, he lets them take the blood that they seem to want on practically a daily basis. The scientist in him can appreciate the skill of their phlebotomist, whose clever fingers find veins through the fur and then shave off that patch, rather than removing more fur than necessary. After the first few tests, though, vein collapse starts to become a serious risk, and the next time the phlebotomist enters the cell, Hank tentatively suggests trying the other arm for a while._

 _They ignore him. It sets the pattern for the rest of their visits._

 _He asks them what they want, aside from the obvious. He tells them that if it's samples they want, he can be accommodating, if they let him see his friends. He tells them that they can have his research, they can keep **him** and he'll work for them, if they let his friends go. He goes into detail about his degrees, about how far he's already come with his work._

 _They ignore him._

 _Eight days in, by his estimation, they stop giving him bread and start trying meat. Cooked at first, but by the thirteenth day, it's raw, and oozing blood. He'd choked down the bread and the cooked meat, realising that he had little other choice, but his stomach rebels at the idea of trying to eat raw meat, however hungry he is._

 _They leave it in the cell regardless, perhaps wondering how long it will take for his pride to crumble._

 _"Ugh, why does it **matter** if it's fertile?"_

 _"Lang wants to see if the physical mutations negate breeding. You have to admit it looks kind of incompatible."_

 _He pushes himself to his feet when he hears them talking in the decontamination chamber. The full impact of their words doesn't sink in right away, but when it does, it feels like there's a block of ice settling in the pit of his stomach. Fertility tests. There's only one way they can do those._

 _When the scientists appear in the doorway, he backs up unconsciously, not even realising he's moving until his shoulders hit the wall. He looks from one to the other and to the door, gauging his chances of getting past them, but there are guards in the decontamination chamber; he can smell them. The fact that he can smell them sickens him for long enough for the scientists to get closer, and when one of them reaches out to touch him, he lashes out instinctively, fear and panic overriding sense._

 _"Don't touch me!"_

 _They ignore his words; they always do. One of the guards joins them in the cell and it's practically cramped now; the cell wasn't built for four. The guard snaps out a baton and has it under Hank's chin, hard and painful against his throat, before Hank can even **think** of fighting back._

 _He's lost strength with confinement and hunger - he still won't eat the raw meat they provide, refuses to let them dehumanise him that far - and the taller scientist is easily able to help the guard pin him against the wall, each half-breath drawn through a painfully-constricted windpipe. The other scientist snaps on a pair of latex gloves, and Hank struggles again, panic rising._

 _" **Don't touch me**!"_

 _The scientists ignore him; the guard likewise, except to thrust the baton harder against his throat, making him choke. He relents after a moment, allowing Hank to breathe again, barely._

 _"Please. Please don't do this, please don't--"_

 _They ignore him._

 

 

He's still shaking as she tugs him away from the others and through unfamiliar corridors, leading him with an arm around him even though he knows how he smells right now and wishes he had the strength to pull away from her. He's barely keeping himself on his feet, though; pulling away would end up with him on the floor, and he can't face the idea of looking up at someone from the floor, even her, because it's too much like being someone's _pet_.

So he lets her lead him, down halls that smell like they've been empty of all but half a dozen people for a long time, and eventually they reach a room that smells tantalisingly familiar, and she urges him into the clean, blue-tiled expanse of a bathroom that's almost bigger than the ones back at the mansion.

It's clean and tiled, and that almost makes him recoil, but then the scent of someone - someone important - and their favourite soap and shampoo reach his nose, and they're soothingly familiar. And it's blue, not white, and he remembers that blue is comforting, even if this is a paler, lighter shade. He lets her tug him gently into the room, closing the door behind them, and she leans up to press a soft kiss to his forehead before turning away to start the shower.

A part of him feels very small and ashamed that that was her first move, but a part of him is pointing out that she knows him well enough to know that he likes to be clean, is fussy about it in a way that got him Hell during college, and that she's just trying to help.

He doesn't know how he knows that.

When she turns back to him and moves to help him take off the lab coat, he flinches back. She pauses, biting her lip, and then says softly, "It's okay, Hank. I'll go first."

Hank. That's familiar. He can't work out why it's familiar.

He watches as she unzips her bright yellow suit, baring blue skin that's almost the same shade as his own fur. She peels it off, draping it over the side of the bathtub, and reaches her hands out, holding them in the air in front of him, waiting for him to step close enough for her to help him take the coat off.

She's small and pretty and she smells nice, and she calls to a part of him that's been buried for weeks, curled up around itself and crying somewhere deep in his chest. He takes a step closer, until his shoulders bump against her hands, and she gives him a sweet, gentle smile.

She lays the lab coat over the side of the tub as well, even though he's pretty sure he wants to burn it, wants to burn everything that reminds him of _there_ and that's a problem, because he can't burn himself, can he? She shakes him out of those thoughts by taking his hands and stepping back into the shower, gently urging him to follow her.

The cubicle is big enough for both of them, with room left over. He expects the water to be cold, and is almost shocked when the warm spray hits him. She adjusts the temperature, making it a little warmer, and then tugs him more fully under the water. He stands passively, letting it soak into him and soothe muscles that have cramped from inaction.

She hesitates, her hand hovering between a liquid soap canister and a bottle of shampoo, and eventually decides on the shampoo, moving behind him and squeezing out a handful. She begins to work it into his fur, rubbing firmly to build up a lather, and her hands, gentle and strong all at once and _not_ hurting, feel so good on him that he can feel himself starting to tear up.

Why is gentle and strong so important? That _combination_ , that juxtaposition, why does it matter so much? A part of him knows, but it's the crying part, the part that begged until its voice was broken, and he doesn't want to let it out. It's got all the good parts, the proper memories and the words that work, but it's got all the bad, too. He's safer like this.

He lets her work the shampoo into every inch of fur, going through a bottle and a half by the time she's done. She's careful, but she's not clinical, and he's glad of that. He couldn't have borne clinical. It's much, much easier for him to bear her handling of him like this, gentle and careful and kind, than it would have been if she'd touched him the way they did _there_.

( _The laboratory_ , that quiet, crying part of him supplies, and he hushes it fiercely. He doesn't need to know the words. Words make everything worse.)

Eventually, she rinses all the suds out, and gets a washcloth wet and slightly soapy. She turns him so his back is facing the water, and reaches up to start gently running the cloth over his face, cleaning the softer, finer fur there. He flinches as she reaches his nose - it doesn't look like hers, it looks almost feline, he doesn't want her touching it - but she just holds the cloth still until he settles, leans up to kiss him softly, and keeps working.

When she's done, she lets them stand under the water for a while longer, keeping her hands on his shoulders, lightly ruffling her fingers through his wet fur. When she finally turns off the water, she steps out of the shower and grabs a towel to wrap around herself, taking another and moving over to him again to start rubbing his fur dry.

She looks worried. He feels bad about making her worry, but he's not sure what else he should be doing.

When they're both dry, she opens the bathroom door and leads him into the bedroom, over to the bed. He baulks, almost instinctively, and her expression is so heartbreakingly sad as she stops and turns to face him, cupping his face with her hands and saying softly, "Hank, listen to me. You're a person. They can't take that away from you. I know you're scared and hurt but please, _please_ try to believe me."

Hank. It's still a word that makes no sense.

He lets her lead him to the bed, and they both sit down. She reaches for the bedside table and picks up a brush, a flat-headed, stiff-bristled thing that doesn't look like it's for her hair. Doesn't look like it's ever been _used_. And she begins to stroke it over his fur, gently combing it back into neatness.

"I've missed you," she says quietly as she brushes. "I keep thinking back to when we first met. I couldn’t understand how someone so brilliant could be so insecure. And then you showed us, and you looked at me like you expected me to be disgusted, but I wasn't. I didn't see a freak or a monster, I saw someone who would understand me."

Something flutters in his chest, tries to speak, but he can't make the words work. She keeps talking, speaking for both of them.

"And you did understand. You understood why I made myself look _normal_ all the time, because all our lives, we'd been told that we didn't look right, that we had to blend in. You took that so much more to heart than I ever did. I resented it. But you tried to help me. You thought I wanted to be normal -- _I_ thought I wanted to be normal -- so you tried to help me. And you weren't disgusted, you were fascinated. You've got such a beautiful, brilliant mind, Hank."

Hank.

Is he Hank?

"It hurt when you said that we'd never be considered beautiful," she admits, the brush moving from his shoulder to his back, smoothing the fur. When she says that he doesn't _want_ to be Hank, because Hank hurt her. But she kisses his cheek and continues, "I know why you said it. You hated the way you looked, hated the stares. You're a lot like Angel that way. You didn't think I was ugly, but you knew that humans would think I was a freak. You wanted me to be able to be normal. Even after I decided that wasn't what I wanted, that meant a lot to me."

Maybe Hank isn’t so bad, if he made her feel like that.

"You were so awkward back then," she says softly, smiling a little. "It was sweet, how _proper_ you were with me. I'd never had anyone act like I was a lady before. Charles always treated me like a little sister, and all his classmates treated me like his little sister, too. But you were so careful about not saying anything inappropriate, even after I told you it was okay. You were… gentlemanly. And that was nice. Sweet. You're one of the sweetest guys I know, Hank, and they might have been trying to take that away from you but they didn't. I know they didn't. I know you're still you. So look at me, okay? Look at me, Hank, please, say something. I need you to say something."

He doesn't want to look at her, doesn't want her to see his eyes, animal eyes that fascinated the scientists. But her hand is against his cheek, gently turning his head, and when he finally does look up, he's entranced by her eyes. Yellow eyes, like his. And _she's_ not an animal; how could she be, when she's so gentle and kind? The brush is on the bed, forgotten, but her fingers on his fur are grooming it into neatness as well as the bristles did.

She has tears in her eyes, and the part of him that's been getting louder, that's hurt and terrified and wants so badly to be able to speak again, forces itself up and out of his throat.

"…Raven."

She breaks into a sobbed smile, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tight, pressing her face into the softer fur at his neck.

"I'm here," she gasps into his neck. "I'm right here, and you're safe now, Hank. You don't have to hide inside yourself anymore. You're safe."

"I never wanted to hurt you."

The words come out haltingly and hoarse, but they're _words_ , and she's listening to them. That matters more than anything else, that she knows he never meant to hurt her and that she's not ignoring him.

She lets out a tiny sob into his fur before pulling back, wiping her face with one hand and cradling his with the other.

"I know you didn’t," she says, kissing him gently. "It's okay. We're both here now, both okay. I love you. You're going to be okay."


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate not to go back to the silence, Charles's mind clings to those around him, as Emma, Erik, and Moira fight to bring him back to himself.

He's sitting on a pristine beige couch in a pristine office, an antique mahogany desk in one corner by a window, one wall covered in degrees and diplomas. A warm fire crackles in the fireplace, chasing away the chill of the snow that he can see outside the window, but he's cold. He looks down at his hands _finebonedelegantmanicurednothis_ and they're white and trembling, just a little.

He stills them, presses his lips together, looks up at the man sitting in the armchair in front of him. The - _doctor_. Yes. The doctor.

"Do you know why you're here today?" the doctor asks gently, using the soft, calm voice that you only use with children or crazy people. Is he crazy? He thinks he might be. How else can he explain it?

But at the same time, he knows he's _not_ crazy. Because he can hear the doctor thinking _such a sad case_ and _at least Winston can afford to get it treated_. He can also hear the doctor thinking some fairly improper things for a doctor to be thinking about a patient, but he's used to that.

(Isn't he?)

"Yes." His voice is firm and steady, with no hint of the cold that's inside his veins. Cold like ice, like glass, and maybe that would be better. Ice doesn't cry, does it? But the doctor is looking at him for an explanation, so he continues quietly, "I'm here because my father had Christian put away."

The doctor sighs. "You're here because you're unwell," he says in that gentle, patronising tone that flows like heavy syrup, sticking to everything. "Your father is very concerned, but hallucinations can be treated if we can work out the underlying cause."

"Is Christian being treated? Or is his underlying cause _perversion_ and thus unworthy of help?"

The doctor sighs again. "Emma, your brother-"

 _«No,»_ says a quiet voice in his head. It's a voice he should dislike, or at least distrust, but he clings to it now, needing it, needing the sad, regretful, angry mind that comes with it. It lets him cling, and says, _«This isn't yours, Charles. Come away now.»_

Reluctantly, he leaves the pristine office with the cold snow outside. It wasn't a nice place, but it was _a_ place, and it was better than the

 

 

 _silence_

 

 

He's standing in a dark hall, pressed into the corner between the door and the coat rack, listening to his mother and father talk in their broad, lilting brogue, the one that he always found so comforting. It's not comforting now, with his father's voice low and heavy, telling his mother that he got turned down for another job. He can hear the shame and frustration in his father's voice, the tears in his mother's gentle reply, and he feels the hot, sick churn of shame in his own stomach.

This is _supposed_ to be a place where people have a second chance. It's supposed to be the _land of liberty_ , and all it's telling his parents is that they're not good enough because of the way they speak. Because people listen to them and hear provincial, backwoods farmers who should have stayed on the rocky, rain-beaten island they came from, instead of trying to turn their hand to work here.

Never mind that his father is the most intelligent, charming man he knows, who teases smiles out of sick children and assures them that they're going to be just fine, who has never once made a frightened child cry during an inoculation. Never mind that his mother is a brilliant scientist, has managed to claw her way up in a field that still thinks women should be secretaries and nurses, not _doctors_ ; the way they sound means they will never be good enough.

And then he's out of the hall and in a bathroom, bright and white and clean, looking at himself _herself?_ in the mirror. No stereotypical features or colouring; he _she?_ is as American as apple pie, or so the saying goes, and he sees it every time someone looks at him like he's such a nice child and then looks taken aback when he speaks. He has his parents' accent, with its lengthened vowels and alveolar tap.

He watches himself in the mirror, and says carefully, mimicking the voices of the children at school, "Hello. My name is Moira. I'm from" _Muir Island_ "Westbrook, in Maine."

His voice doesn't sound like his, and there are tears streaking the face of the girl in the mirror. His gut churns with guilt, but he swallows heavily and repeats, "Hello. My name is Moira. I'm from Westbrook, in Maine."

 _«You're not me, Charles.»_ A gentle voice, one that's simmering with anger beneath the comfort, anger that will come out sooner or later but for now is being suppressed in favour of kindness. It feels different to the first voice, subtler, less directed, as it says, _«Not this memory, Charles. There are much better ones. If you need them you can have them, but take the good ones. They're the ones I want you to have.»_

Reluctantly, he leaves the clean white brightness of the bathroom and the crying girl trying to erase her accent. It's not a nice memory, but it was still better than the

 

 

 _silence_

 

 

He looks down at the dirt, and his stomach is churning, threatening to expel the food that he knows the other prisoners would kill for. He forces his bile down; wasting food is practically criminal here, and he doesn't want _another_ reason to feel guilty.

The sky is heavy and grey over him, like the dull matte grey of the gun _I'llcounttothree_ and he almost feels like he should be able to move the clouds, move the sky itself and reveal the sun that he's starting to think might have just been his imagination. That maybe it's always been cold and dim and grey, maybe he's always been scared and alone and wracked with guilt, and maybe he just made up the sun as some sort of comforting game to get him through the darkness.

He looks down at the dirt, at his feet in overlarge shoes, his ankles sticking out bony and fragile, and swallows heavily, his gaze skittering aside to lock onto the shovel.

The _half_ -shovel, at best; the haft has been cut away roughly, leaving splintered wood, but the blade shines like it's freshly polished, like the buttons on Schmidt's coat, protecting the tall man from the cold.

"You know what to do," Schmidt says, giving him that genial, fatherly smile that he hates. That smile always comes before something painful, he's learned that in a scant few days, and he looks away from Schmidt and over to the thing he's been trying to avoid.

A bundle, five and a half feet long and wrapped in a dirty, ragged linen shroud. The linen might once have been white, and that's comforting, a little. Schmidt had let him stay with the body when he wasn't experimenting, no doubt out of some idea that it would reinforce his desire to learn, to prevent this from happening again, but he's still grateful; there was no other way to find _shomrim_ here, and at least she wasn't alone. He hadn't known what _Tehillim_ to say, so he'd whispered any Psalms he could remember over her, hoping they would be enough.

Schmidt's hand is on his shoulder, heavy and frightening in its gentleness, and Schmidt repeats, "You know what to do."

He nods, looks at the shovel, and tries to focus. He has to make it work this time. He's disappointed her enough already, he has to give her as much of a proper burial as he can.

The shovel wobbles twice, then remains quiescent. A small part of him wails in frustration and fear, but he keeps his expression as neutral as he can. Schmidt has always pressed further, so far, when he's had that sort of confirmation that something is working, and he still aches from yesterday's experiments.

Seconds drag, as he tries to bring his still-nebulous power to bear. But it still scares him, what he can do with it, when he _couldn't_ do something as simple as move a coin. Dragging a gate out of shape, crushing mens' heads with their own helmets, sending Schmidt's tools into disarray, had all been so easy, almost thoughtless. But _directing_ it - he's still scared of what will happen if he does, and what will happen if he _can't_.

Schmidt sighs, sounding disappointed. "Erik," he chides. His hand slips down from his shoulder, over his chest like an obscene, fleshy spider, tugging at the torn breast pocket on an otherwise fairly good-quality shirt, and he says, "I'm already going to have to punish you for damaging perfectly good clothing. Don't make me add her cremation to the list."

He swallows, looking back at the shovel. He doesn't know whether Schmidt thinks that the torn pocket was just adolescent rage or whether he knows it's _k'riah_ , and he's not sure which would be worse. Schmidt has already made it clear that he has no tolerance for the Sabbath or evening prayers. The possible whiteness of the shroud is probably coincidence; the threat of cremation is decidedly not.

 _«No, Charles.»_ This voice is soft and undirected, too, not like the first one with its diamond edges. This voice is familiar and precious and painful, and he can't understand the contradictions in it. _«Not this. You don't want to look at this.»_

This time, he's not reluctant. He leaves this memory gladly, drawing closer in to himself, almost glad when it fades. Such fear and pain, that's all he can remember, fear and pain and sorrow. How can he believe in anything else?

This time, he's almost glad for the silence.

 

 

It doesn't last, though. Flickers of colour, of thought, of emotion, draw him in like a moth. He craves the contact of the other minds, even if that contact hurts. Hurt is better than _nothing_.

 

 

He's on his knees on a filthy concrete floor, arms forced up and bound to pipes running down into the floor. There's a man sitting on a rickety wooden chair across the room from him, and the man's breath steams in the chilly air, but the cold isn't bothering _him_. It's just making his skin the same temperature as his blood, that's all. It's not something that discomforts him.

The man across the room stands up and saunters over to him, looking down at him with the same avaricious smile that he's used to seeing on everyone who looks at him. (Isn't he?) People always think about what they can get from him, not what he might want. His father, his sisters, the doctors, the professors at college - only Christian had never _wanted_ anything from him except for companionship, and look where that got Christian. Disowned, suicidal, committed. Christian taught _him_ the value of coldness.

The man kneels, holding out a hand full of small, perfect diamonds, tinted with the palest, iciest blue. He stirs them with his thumb, saying, "Pretty things, these. I'd like you to make more of them for me."

He spits in the man's face, and is rewarded with a hard backhand that snaps his head to the side. When he's able to see properly again, he blows a bit of blonde hair out of his face and glares at the man, saying in a quiet, cold voice, "Where is my brother?"

"He'll be just fine, sweetheart. As long as you do what you're told."

He brushes the man's mind with his own, seeking answers, but there's nothing. The bastard doesn't _know_ where Christian is. He knows that another man knows who knows, but he deliberately kept himself ignorant. They know too much. There are only a few people who know this much about him, and that means one of them has betrayed him.

"Who was it?" he asks, shifting to try to ease the drag of the ropes on his arms. "Cordelia or Adrienne?"

The man laughs. "Stupid girl. It was your precious Ian."

He stares at the man, refusing to give him the victory of tears. He locks those up inside, keeping his expression passive as his heart breaks. He should have known better than to trust Ian, trust someone who has no idea what it's like to have to hide what you are day after day. How could a human have understood?

The man eyes him for a minute, and then shrugs, getting back to his feet. He tugs a coil of leather from his belt, unfurling the whip.

"Well, if you won't cry over that, we'll just have to do this the hard way."

 _«No.»_ The diamond voice is back. It's gentle in an odd sort of way as it says, _«Charles, stop looking for excuses to keep hiding.»_

But there's so much pain, he wants to protest. This is _proving_ it. This, and the girl crying in her bathroom, and the boy trying to dig a grave without using his hands, and the girl sitting in the doctor's office, they're all proof that there's nothing but fear and pain and sorrow, and why should he go back to that? He can feel them calling him, he can feel the sharp edges and dark places of _that_ mind and the bright intelligence and cool practicality of _that_ mind reaching out to him, trying to coax him back, but why should he go? Why should he go back to that world when they're proving to him that the only thing it contains is fear?

 _«You're looking for fear,»_ the sharp-edged voice says, infinitely patient. _«You're looking for monsters. Let us show you the way.»_

 _«There's so much more than fear,»_ the cool, bright voice says, coaxing. _«So much that makes the pain worth it. Let us show you.»_

He doesn't want to see. Seeing means he has to face up to _that_ , and he doesn't want to. Doesn't want to remember the emptiness. At least here he has minds to wrap around himself like a quilt, even if he can only find the dark parts of them.

 _«Charles, please.»_ He can't tell whether this is the sharp-edged voice or the cool, bright one. They mingle, each one saying different words that blend into one in his mind. _«Follow us. Please.»_

The diamond voice is the pathway. The other voices lead him, the cool, bright one ahead and the sharp-edged one behind, leading and guarding.

 

He's holding a young girl's hand, leading her up the path to his parents' house. The girl looks nervous, and he stops, crouching in front of her and saying, "It's all right, Rahne. They'll look after you while I'm at work."

The girl sniffles and whispers, "You're not just leaving because you don't want me around?"

He pulls her into a hug, kissing her forehead, and murmurs, "I would never leave you alone, sweetheart. I promise. My parents will love you just as much as I do."

The door opens, and his father is standing there, looking down the path at them. For a moment he's afraid that his father will disapprove, but then his familiar, brilliant smile spreads across his face and he holds out his arms.

He lifts the girl into his arms and practically runs to his father, who enfolds them both in a hug that feels as though it could protect them from the world.

"Da, this is Rahne," he says, and his accent slips back in a bit, now that he's concentrating more on Rahne than on fitting in. "I adopted her" after her bastard of a father abandoned her "but she should have something more stable than my work."

His father doesn't even hesitate. "Then she'll stay here. Welcome to our home, lass."

 

He's kneeling on a bed, arms around the dark-haired woman astride his lap, and -

 _«I don't think this is necessary,»_ the sharp-edged voice says.

 _«It **is** one of your nicer memories,»_ the diamond voice points out. It sounds amused. He's not _quite_ sure why, but it's right; this is a nice memory. There's love in it.

 _«I have other nice memories. That **don't** involve sex.»_

There's the sense of a sigh, and they draw him away. As the memory fades, the cool, bright voice asks curiously, _«Who is she?»_

For long moments, he thinks the sharp-edged voice isn't going to answer, and then, as the image fades completely: _«She was called Magda.»_

 

Cordelia is laughing. He hasn't seen Cordelia laugh since they were very young, before their father started to pit them against each other. But Cordelia is laughing, and he doesn't even _really_ mind that it's at him.

" _God_ , what are you _wearing_?"

He looks down at himself _herself?_ and shrugs, giving Cordelia a bit of a smile. "Men are easily distracted. If they're thinking about my breasts, they don't notice me in their heads."

"Misdirection. I like it." Cordelia sits back on the couch, rubbing her hand over the soft, velvety material. It's deliberately _not_ leather, like the couches he remembers. "This is a nice place. Well. _This_ part of it is nice. The rest is kind of tacky."

He _she?_ laughs. "It _is_ , but it serves a purpose. Are you interested in my proposition?"

"Business partners?" Cordelia looks thoughtful. "I could work with that. Even split?" He nods, and Cordelia smiles. "I'd say that's a yes, then. As long as I don't have to walk around in lingerie."

He pours them both champagne, and they clink their glasses together in a toast.

"To the Hellfire Club, then."

 _«You run the Hellfire Club?»_ the cool, bright voice asks, sounding surprised.

 _«Mmm. Sebastian was a shareholder, but my sister and I own the controlling interest,»_ the diamond voice replies. _«Delia's been running it in my absence. Doing rather well, I imagine.»_

There's fondness in this memory, and not just for the start of a successful business venture. There's love, for the sister. He remembers that sort of love, and for a moment, he wonders where Raven is.

 _«With Hank,»_ the cool, bright voice says. _«He needs her. You'll see her when you wake up, Charles.»_

But waking up will hurt, he wants to protest. These memories, these nicer ones, he wants to stay here with them. Waking up will put him back in that ruined, broken body, and it will make him have to remember.

 _«Life isn't always good,»_ the sharp-edged voice says, very quietly. _«But the good times make the bad times bearable.»_

 

"I thought I was alone!"

"You're not alone. Erik, you're not alone."

Strange, how he hadn't noticed Erik's tears, in the water. Or maybe he had, and had just assumed they were water. He can't make that mistake now, with this memory saturated with disbelief and hope.

 

"For a pretty little being with a mutated MCR1 gene, I have five."

 _«You're a terrible flirt, Charles,»_ the cool, bright voice says, sounding amused.

"This is very important to me. And if I can help you, I will do my utmost."

Moira smiles at him, and says sincerely, "Thank you."

 

"Emma, Delia."

Christian's face is suffused with a nervous, hopeful expression. The scars are clear on his arms, ugly ropes up the inside of his forearms, but he's not hiding them, and the dark-haired man at his side has his hand on Christian's arm, his thumb brushing over the end of one of the scars, reassuring.

Cordelia raises her eyebrows and says mildly, "Well. He's _very_ pretty, Christian."

And Christian _smiles_. Emma can't remember the last time she saw him smile. He wasn't smiling when she bought his way out of the facility, or when she'd seen him with the private psychiatrist, but he's smiling now, and the dark-haired man is smiling with him.

"This is Jean-Paul. JP, these are my sisters."

" _Enchante_ ," Jean-Paul says, giving them both a little nod in acknowledgement, and as his hair shifts, Emma spots pointed ears, and smiles a little.

"It's lovely to meet you," she says, and wonders what his power is, but she doesn't pry. He'll tell them when he trusts them.

 _«That's the brother that your father put away,»_ Charles says slowly. _«He's… all right now?»_

 _«He's doing better,»_ the diamond voice - Emma, he realises - says, and there's fondness in her voice. _«Jean-Paul is good for him.»_

They keep showing him memories. Moira at Rahne's ninth birthday party, just six weeks ago. Erik and the Brotherhood fixing up their new home, with Azazel making terrible jokes as he and Raven and Angel watch Erik and Janos doing the metalwork and carpentry. Emma, taking a three-day break from the Brotherhood, stopping by the Hellfire Club and spending those days with Cordelia, Christian, and Jean-Paul, watching _Hello, Dolly!_ at the St. James Theatre. Moira telling Rahne bedtime stories over the phone. A much younger Erik looking absolutely lost as he sits on a bus and listens to a small, tow-headed child babble at him over the back of the seat in front of him. _She doesn’t think I'm different._ "I'm going to surrogate for them." "Of course I'll be home for Christmas, Rahne." "The point between rage and serenity." "Will you be her godmother?" "…a kiss…" "It was a beautiful memory. Thank you for sharing it with me."

 

He wakes up.

He's lying on a bed in a medical bay that isn’t the one at the mansion, and for a moment he wants to panic. But then the wood-panel walls and the linoleum floor strike him as incongruous, and he realises that this isn't the laboratory. This is somewhere else.

There are warm weights on his hands, more warmth along either side of his body, and cool hands along the side of his head. He turns his head enough to see Erik and Moira lying on the bed beside him, holding onto his hands. They both look peaceful, like they're sleeping, but he can see drying tears on their faces. He can feel tears drying on his own face.

He tilts his head up, looking to see whose hands are holding his head, and is startled to see Emma Frost there. There aren't tears on her face, but as he moves his head, he feels something hard and cool on the pillow. She moves one of her hands, reaches down and picks up whatever it is, and shows it to him.

Tiny, perfect diamonds, tinted with the palest, iciest blue.

She gives him a tiny smile, and he's not really surprised to see her lip quivering a little. He'd thought she didn't have emotion, but he was wrong; she just doesn't display it. That doesn't mean she doesn't feel it.

Beside him, Erik and Moira stir, and they both look at him, as though reassuring themselves that he's all right. Emma seems like she's about to move away, but Charles frees a hand and reaches out to take hers.

"Thank you." His voice is hoarse and it hurts to speak, but it's important that they all hear this. "Thank you. I owe you everything."

"No, you don't," Moira says gently, as she and Erik help him sit up, supporting him on each side. Emma, seemingly giving up on the idea that she should go, sits by the bed, by Erik's side, and Moira continues, "We weren't going to give up on you. But you'd do the same thing for us. It's what friends do for each other."

"Welcome back," Erik says, his voice oddly thick. His hand finds Charles's and holds tightly, as though he's afraid to let go.

 _I thought we'd lost you._

Charles can't tell whose thought that was, but it doesn't matter. Their relief - even Emma's - is palpable, and their presence is enough that he can breathe. He'll be needed soon, to help his students in their recovery, but for now, for right now, he can just surround himself with the feel of them and breathe into a silence that's not silent.


	6. United

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Erik is checking on Sean, Alex, Darwin and Hank, he convinces Darwin not to keep his suffering to himself if talking will help, and makes an unsettling discovery.

Seven days after the rescue, Erik leaves Charles's room in the infirmary at six am, feeling absurdly like he's sneaking out of a lover's room before their parents wake up. He feels out of sorts, and he blames that on the fact that he slept poorly; his dreams weren't exactly _bad_ , but they were _strange_. He doesn't remember many details now that he's awake, but he knows, somehow, that the dreams were vivid and strange but _not_ the nightmares that plague him on and off.

He feels a little guilty about leaving Charles's room, but Emma's there, keeping psychic watch over Charles's sleep, and Erik needs to stretch his legs. He needs to check on the others, too, because he knows Charles will want to know how they're all doing. Emma has been ranging through the compound, checking on basic states of mind, but all she can tell them with that light browsing is that none of them are as distressed as they were when they were rescued. That's a start, but Erik wants to check on them properly.

Sean's closest, still in the infirmary. Erik doesn't turn the light on as he pauses in the doorway; no need to wake the boy, who needs his rest to help his body heal. He's not _really_ surprised to find Janos there, curled up in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs that they keep in the infirmary. Erik hadn't expected Janos to volunteer to watch over Sean, a week ago, but the last several months have shown him different sides of his Brotherhood, and he knows Janos takes his responsibilities seriously.

The chart at the end of Sean's bed is topped with a metal clip, and Erik calls it to his hand silently, not wanting to wake either of them. He peruses the notes on the chart - most of them are in Janos's handwriting, but Moira's and Emma's appears as well - and nods to himself; Sean is, according to the notes, healing well, and they expect him to begin speaking again in a few days, once his throat has healed a little more. Janos's notes are more in-depth, going into Sean's emotional state, and indicate that Sean is taking what Janos terms a perverse pleasure in bossing him around via handwritten notes. Erik grins to himself; if Sean is feeling well enough to pester Janos, he's already on the mend. Charles will be glad to know that.

Next stop is Alex's room, on this level but away from the infirmary. That had been Angel's idea; she'd argued that they needed one of the rooms on the ground floor with French doors opening into what had once been a garden, in case Alex needed to burn off energy, and Erik couldn't fault her argument. This time, mindful of Alex's past and his almost violent, at times, need for his privacy to be respected, he knocks lightly on the door. If nobody answers, he can come back later.

It's Darwin who comes to the door, and Erik realises, suddenly and sharply, that nobody has really talked to Darwin about _his_ captivity. He can see it in Darwin's eyes, the same thing he's used to seeing in his own when he looks in the mirror.

"Hey." Darwin looks wary, which Erik supposes he deserves. "Everything okay? Angel's sleeping - I can try to wake her up if you need her, but she's kind of half on top of Alex, so it might be a bit tricky-"

"Actually, I want to talk to you," Erik says, surprising himself at least as much as he's obviously surprised Darwin. He gentles his expression into something resembling neutral, adding quietly, "You've been taking care of Alex all this week, and that's admirable, but I have to wonder - have you talked to anyone?"

Darwin shrugs. "Didn't seem like the right time. There's been other people to worry about."

"I don't have anyone else to worry about right now."

A lie, but the person he's most concerned about is sleeping deeply, watched over by another telepath. Charles won't wake alone until he wants to.

Darwin hesitates, but Erik can tell he's wavering. Erik stays quiet, letting Darwin decide for himself, and eventually the younger man steps into the corridor, closing the door softly behind him, glancing back towards the room with an expression that is a combination of concerned, fond, and tired.

"He's still taking it hard," he says quietly, turning back to look at Erik. "What they were trying to make him do. He still thinks the first time was his fault. So how am I supposed to tell him that at least when we were locked in that pit together, I had someone there who wasn't trying to work out what would damage me?"

"What did they do to you?" Erik asks, keeping his voice low and even. He can imagine. He doesn't _have_ to imagine - if they're anything like Shaw, he _knows_ some of what they did to Darwin. He knows that talking doesn't always help, but he also knows that someone else knowing your pain can be a relief. A burden shared isn't a burden halved, but pain shared is pain _understood_ , or at least sympathised with.

Darwin gives another awkward, uncomfortable shrug, and says, "Couldn't do much, could they? I don't control it, it just happens on its own. So as soon as something starts being dangerous, I adapt. They got blood a couple of times, but I guess they weren't careful enough about switching veins, because after my arm started bruising up, they couldn't get needles to penetrate anymore."

That's not all of it. Erik leans against the wall, looking silently at Darwin, letting him talk. Darwin doesn't need him to say anything, not yet; he just needs him to be there, to listen. And Erik thinks that, perhaps, he's the only person Darwin _could_ tell any of this to. They all know that Erik has personal experience with being a lab rat; he hadn't made a secret of it. He's harder than the rest of them; he never made a secret about that, either. He hadn't been ashamed of it, but he'd never been so fiercely _glad_ of it the way he is now. If his pain means he can help ease someone else through the recovery he never got to have, maybe he can find sense in it all.

"They'd only take me out while they were staking Alex out, so . . . maybe a few hours a day. Three, maybe four. First day was easy. They just took some blood, ran some scans. Nothing Hank hasn't done before. Some of them were even kind of nice about it, saying they were sorry if it hurt, that sort of thing. Like you say to a kid when he's getting an inoculation."

Darwin's voice is a little distant, as though he's talking about something that happened a long time ago, or perhaps in a movie. Erik can understand that. He talks about his time with Shaw, when he talks about it at all, in the same detached, impersonal way. It makes it easier to say what has to be said.

"The second day was worse," Darwin says quietly. "I think they were pissed at something, because they were a lot less apologetic about everything then. It was still mostly taking blood - I think they were doing a bunch of tests to see whether my mutation extended to my blood, whether it worked when the blood was separated. They tried cutting me a few times, using regular scalpels and then other tools, something diamond-edged once. None of it worked, none of it even really hurt. It felt more like… pressure, but not pain. Uncomfortable, but nothing serious.

"The third day, they stopped being able to get blood. My arm looked like a bit of a mess, and I guess they'd used the same vein too often. The needle would go in, but it wouldn't penetrate the vein anymore. They snapped three off in my arm before they figured that out."

He's looking at Erik, looking as though he expects Erik to tell him to stop, that he doesn't want to hear any more, that Darwin will have to deal with it on his own because Erik can't handle it. Erik doesn't say any of those things, though, just watching him with an expression that's the closest to understanding Erik has ever worn.

Darwin swallows and continues.

"After that, they got . . . desperate, I guess. I think they had someone they were working for who expected results. A few things they said pointed to that, anyway. One of the scientists was pretty sure that this Lang guy would be pissed if they spent a month working on me with nothing to show for it, so they started to get more creative with what they tried to use on me."

Lang again. Erik tucks the name away, making a note to talk to Emma, Moira, and Charles about him. They're going to have to take steps to deal with him for good, sooner rather than later.

"They tried injecting acid into me at one point," Darwin says, his hand going to the crook of his other elbow, rubbing a spot that, Erik can see, looks like it was burned. Darwin's mutation has a slight lag, he knows; they'll have been able to do _some_ damage, however small, in the time between their attempts and when his mutation kicked in.

"Not much else worked," Darwin continues. "If they gave me any warning, it was like my body figured what was happening and what to do to keep it from getting worse. They were going to inject something into my eyes, but they couldn't stop me from seeing the needles coming, and I developed this . . . barrier, like transparent bone, over my eyeballs. Made it hard to blink, but . . . well, it was better than whatever they wanted to stick in me."

When Darwin falls silent, seemingly done for now, Erik asks quietly, "How are the nightmares?"

Darwin shrugs. "Not too bad. I guess it helps that I've got Alex and Angel around; it's harder to have bad dreams when you've got a couple of other people there. Seems to be helping Alex, too, he hasn't had more than a couple of bad dreams since the fever went down."

"We're not talking about Alex," Erik says, his tone oddly gentle for him, and he didn't even do that on purpose. "I'm glad having him around helps. Angel, too. But if you need something that they can't provide," - like someone who can listen without horror, who will understand without pitying - "then I'm here."

"What's going to happen when the others are well enough to travel?" Darwin asks abruptly. "I know you didn't have much choice about us staying here when you brought us, and Alex and Sean still aren't up to much travelling, but what about when they're healed?"

Erik pauses. He hadn't even thought about that, if he's honest with himself. Getting Charles and the boys to safety had been all that had mattered, and once they were safe, he hadn't wanted to think about what to do next. He'd just wanted them to stay safe.

"You're all welcome to stay here," he says eventually. "Our facilities aren't quite as nice as Charles's, but they're comfortable, if isolated."

"The way I understand it, you and the Professor had a pretty big ideological falling-out," Darwin points out. He's not saying it to be cruel, Erik knows; he just wants to know the score.

"We did," Erik admits, noting the flicker of respect in Darwin's eyes as he says it. "Charles wants to believe that humanity can accept us; I don't know that I can believe that. But now, _right_ now, my quarrel isn't with humanity as a whole. It's with the people who took you. I think Charles and I can both agree that they need to be found and stopped before they do this to any other mutants, people who will be less equipped to cope with it."

 _People who will be made into another me, ten years from now, twenty. Children who will be tortured until they don't know how to feel anything but pain and give anything but violence._

"We can all agree on that," Darwin says darkly. "When you find the guy in charge, this Lang, whoever he is, I want to be there. I want to hear his excuses for what he did."

It's a better response than Erik had hoped for. He knows that Alex, most likely, will want to be there so he can watch Lang die; he _hopes_ , for their own sakes, that Sean and Hank will feel differently. Watching your tormenter die doesn't bring the peace Erik had always thought it would, he knows from bitter experience.

He nods, managing a smile, and says, "It'll be good to have you with us."

Darwin's answering smile is an honest one, at least. He glances back at the door before looking back to Erik. He says awkwardly, "Look, I . . . I appreciate you listening. Might take you up on the offer to listen more, later. But I should get back. Alex still isn't sleeping great if me and Angel aren't with him."

Erik nods, gesturing to the door. "By all means. Look after him. I'll be back to check on you all in a while."

As the door closes behind Darwin, Erik lets out a sigh of relief. He can tell that he hasn't touched all of Darwin's trauma yet, but it's not nearly as bad as he had feared. He can tell Charles that some of his students, at least, are recovering decently.

Hank is next, and Hank is the one that Erik is most concerned about. He takes the spiral staircase to Raven's room, savouring the burn in his legs from the exercise so early in the morning, and knocks lightly, again waiting for the door to be answered. Hank has had enough humanity stripped from him; Erik isn't going to take his privacy as well.

Raven is the one who answers the door, and she's in her natural blue form again, something Erik is a little surprised, and very pleased, to see. He'd been afraid that Charles and Hank's presence would have Raven reverting to the blonde, human look, but he should have known better. She's stronger than that, much more confident in herself these days. She still cares about what other people think of her, but no longer to the detriment of what she thinks of herself.

"How is he?" Erik asks softly, not trying to look past Raven into the room. She deserves her privacy just as much as Hank does, and he's not her older brother, to be keeping tabs on what she does in her own time.

"Sleeping," Raven replies, giving Erik a critical look. "Which _you_ should be doing too, by the looks of you. You're not going to be any good to anyone if you wear yourself to the bone trying to look after us all."

Erik waves off her concern, although he's touched by it, and asks "How's he doing in general? Charles will want to know."

Raven rolls her eyes. "Of course that's the _only_ reason you're asking. _You_ couldn't possibly care, could you, Erik?"

"Raven."

The reprimand comes out a great deal less strictly than is really good for his image as their leader, but he can't help laughing. At some point Raven had appointed herself _his_ sister, too, deciding that if she doesn't have Charles to make fun of, Erik would do just as well. He had minded a little, back then, but he finds he minds it much less now.

"He's coping," she says, her tone turning solemn. "He's still got a ways to go, but he'll be okay. He's talking more now. Tell Azazel that I really appreciate him bringing proper food up - I know _you've_ been living on coffee for the last week, but not all of us hate our stomach lining and I think it's been good for Hank to have actual food. Let Charles know that when he's up for it, Hank would like to talk to him, but that we both understand we can't rush it. And _sleep_."

She leans up to kiss his cheek before she retreats back into the bedroom. Erik heads back downstairs, shaking his head and chuckling softly. If Raven's relaxed enough to be teasing him about how much coffee he drinks, then Hank can't be doing too badly.

Speaking of coffee - he detours into the kitchen. It's more like a cafeteria, really, set up to service something like a hundred students living here full-time. Azazel takes over the kitchen most nights, but he's not there now; probably patrolling, Erik thinks, reminding himself to thank Azazel for his diligence this last week.

Erik checks the coffeepot, pours himself a cup and refills it; Moira will want coffee after the restless night she had. He adds more sugar than he really should and an almost indecent amount of cream to his mug, and is in the middle of a mouthful when he pauses, frowning and thinking back over his last few minutes, turning to look at the coffeepot, suddenly puzzled.

How the _hell_ does he know Moira had a bad night?

"Oh, thank God," Moira says from the doorway, hurrying into the kitchen and checking the coffeepot, sighing in relief when she finds it hot enough and pouring herself a mug that she takes black. She looks rumpled, like she just got out of bed; her hair's a mess, and she's wrapped in a bathrobe that Erik is pretty sure belongs to Emma.

"Rough night?" he asks carefully, eyeing her over the rim of his mug. She'd been sleeping soundly enough when he left Charles's room, but it's not like they'd been sharing a bed; she might be quiet about her sleep disturbances.

"Restless," she says with a little shrug. "I guess I'm still a bit unsettled about that link-up we did to bring Charles back. Having you three so close was . . . overwhelming."

"It was brave of you," Erik remarks. "Not everyone would be okay with risking it."

Emma had been clear about the risks. She could defend herself psychically, and she could _try_ to defend Erik and Moira, who lacked any real mental defences, but the fact of the matter had remained that Charles was powerful and, when they let Emma link their minds together, traumatised. He could have destroyed their minds without meaning to, without even knowing he was doing it. Moira hadn't even hesitated, and Erik's estimation of her had, as it had been over the last few weeks, increased dramatically.

She shrugs, practically inhaling her coffee, and says, "He's worth it. Even if I'm going to yell at him for _hours_ about erasing my memory when he's feeling better."

Erik blinks at her. He hadn't expected anything like that, but now that he thinks about it, it makes sense. It explains why Moira was where she was when he and Emma went to visit her, instead of being taken with Charles and the boys.

"I didn't realise . . . it seems unlike Charles," he says, and is uncomfortably aware that the beach wrought changes in all of them, and he's not close enough to Charles anymore to be able to say that erasing Moira's memory for the sake of safety is uncharacteristic.

Moira's expression softens, and for a moment, it looks like she's about to reach out to Erik. She stops herself, though, merely saying, "You've got a second chance, Erik. Don't waste it on self-loathing."

He shrugs, uncomfortable, and changes the subject. "I'll have Azazel take you back home to pack some more clothes, if you want. I know it can't be fun having to make do with Emma and Raven's spares."

She smiles, looking honestly touched. He raises his eyebrows, a little confused about her expression, and she says, "I didn't expect you to _want_ me to stick around."

He shrugs again, forestalling the need to explain by pouring himself another mug of coffee, giving far too much attention to the work of doctoring it to his liking. He doesn't know how he's supposed to explain to her, or even if she wants him to. He just knows that she helps Charles, and that he respects her a lot more, these days, than he had ever thought he would.

"Thank you." The words make him look up, startled; she's looking at him with that soft smile that she had when Charles promised to help her. He's a little startled to realise that he has that memory now, with perfect clarity. Moira continues, "You help him too, you know. He was calling for you. There're things that need to be talked about - for all of us, not just you and him - but . . . you're still friends."

"You know what I'm thinking," Erik says, his voice sounding odd and distorted through the sudden thundering in his ears. He can feel his heart racing, adrenaline pumping, his body trying to find a way to deal with this new potential threat. Not Moira, she's not the threat, but what she's saying is. What she understands without him saying anything. The way he knew she wanted coffee.

She's frowning, now. "You said you respect me, and that I help Charles. You said it just now."

"No."

Erik feels light-headed, which is funny, because his head feels like it's got too much stuffed into it, four peoples' worth of minds, experiences bleeding over. God, he feels sorry for the others, he wouldn't wish his memories on anyone. He lets out a tiny, cracking laugh, because this _really_ isn't funny, not with how much he'd fought to keep his mind inviolate during all of Shaw's games, not with how much it had hurt when Emma had turned his memories against him, how much it had hurt to betray Charles's trust after he'd let him in. He hadn't wanted anyone in his mind to find out that killing Shaw hadn't solved anything, and it had been difficult enough to let Emma add him to the link-up to bring Charles back.

Moira is looking at him in concern, obviously worried about that laugh, and Erik shakes his head, vaguely aware that every metal fixture in the room is vibrating slightly, emitting a low, constant hum.

"Erik?"

"I didn't say it," Erik says, laughing again. Oh, God, this can't be happening. It can't. Not now. Not when he needs, more than ever, to hold it together, to look after everyone while they recover and help each other through recovery. "I didn't say it. I _thought_ it."


	7. Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma, Erik, Charles, and Moira must go deeper into each others' minds than they ever have before in order to deal with the consequences of their bid to bring Charles out of his mind after the rescue. In the process, they discover things about each other that none of them had considered.

It's been a strange week. It's been a strange couple of years, really, if Emma's going to be honest with herself. She's not used to thinking about anyone besides herself and her family in anything but a professional capacity. Oh, she and Sebastian had their flirtations, and she'd been fond enough of him, but she'd also been very aware of his megalomaniac tendencies. Her feelings for him had always been tempered by her knowledge that if he thought it was more expedient, he would abandon her with barely a second thought.

And, since she's being honest with herself -- an uncomfortable thing, really, that she usually tries to avoid -- her affection for Sebastian, towards the end, had been severely tested by her knowledge of what he'd done to Erik. _We don't hurt other mutants, indeed. Tell that to the little boy you tortured, Sebastian. Tell that to Darwin._

Erik is gone now, off checking on the others. Moira has gone as well, yawning, in search of coffee. Emma had volunteered to stay, not wanting Charles to wake up alone, and that's another thing that's strange. She'd met other telepaths before -- not _many_ , and never for long, but enough that she'd learned to develop her own mental defences -- and she's never cared much for them. She's certainly never cared enough to guard another telepath's sleep.

She tries to tell herself that she cares because this is Raven's brother, and she's come to be fond of Raven. It's nice to have other women around, even if she doesn't have a lot in common with Raven and Angel, both from underprivileged backgrounds; although Raven was adopted into a more privileged home early on, there's history there that's unpleasant, something about a step-brother or a half-brother that Emma has never really pried into. She knows how sensitive family can be. She wouldn't want anyone prying into her parents, or Adrienne.

Emma is not like Angel and Raven, both confident but insecure. Emma has never been insecure about her appearance or her abilities. She's always been what humans consider beautiful; she doesn't have blue skin or wings to contend with. She thinks, sometimes -- more in the last eighteen months than ever before, and that makes her feel a little uncomfortably guilty sometimes -- that that's why it was so easy for Sebastian to convince her to join his side. He appealed to her confidence in her power, saying that he _needed_ her by his side. It was only after his death that she really began to realise how much of their relationship was manipulation, on both sides.

Charles stirs in his sleep, and Emma forces herself to think of something else. She's noticed, these last few days, that he's been picking up emotional states more easily, and she's been doing her best to keep her mind calm, in case he reaches out and finds it in his questing for something to hold onto.

 _«Emma?»_

 _«It's all right,»_ she responds, projecting the words in soft, soothing waves over him. _«Go back to sleep.»_

He settles again, and Emma falls back to her contemplation of the strange turn her life has taken. Two years ago, she was working with Sebastian because she was sure he was going to win, and Emma is nothing if not practical when it comes to her own survival. She has no love for humans -- she respects _some_ , like Christian, but he's _family_. Family doesn't count as a different species -- and Sebastian's plan, while grandiose, had had merit; she'd seen little point in pitting herself against him. What could the humans possibly do against mutants?

Bring in other mutants, it had turned out; bring in other men and women whose moralities had clashed with Emma's cold pragmatism so strongly that, for a time, she'd been unsure about what she believed anymore. She'd taken time away from the Brotherhood, as Erik had taken to calling it, to spend with her sister and brother and Jean-Paul, trying to remind herself that these three people were the only ones that mattered to her.

It hadn't worked. Her dislike for humans hasn't lessened -- she can never forgive her father for what he did to Christian, or her mother for neglecting them all so badly that Emma turned cold, Cordelia turned wild, and Adrienne turned into a worse version of their father. She can never forgive the humans who tried to use her to further their own wealth, who threatened her brother when he was at his most fragile. But some humans, some few humans, she can see the value in, and she can understand, now, why Sebastian's plan was as monstrous as Charles believes it was.

In the months since the beach, Emma has grown fond of this rag-tag little group that Erik is holding together with something so different from what Sebastian used. Erik is forthright, honest about what he wants and expects from them. Erik doesn't flirt with Angel or whistle for Azazel like a dog; he doesn't call Emma or Raven _things_ , the way Sebastian had referred to Emma sometimes. Not the most beautiful _person_ he'd ever seen; the most beautiful _thing_ he'd ever seen. It's a subtle difference, but Emma has come to appreciate it.

Erik's psychic voice feels like a shard of ice-cold metal dragging down her spine when she suddenly hears it, all sharp edges and bright planes and _pain_ , so much pain and fear that it makes her shudder.

 _«Not this, not now. Not **now**. Please, God, if you ever loved me, not this.»_

When she extends her mind and feels the turmoil in the kitchen, she glances at Charles to make sure he's still sleeping peacefully before extending her telepathy out further, brushing lightly against Erik and Moira's minds and murmuring, _«Calm down. I can hear you up here. What's wrong?»_

 _«Did you know?»_ Erik's mental voice cuts through her like a knife and she winces; he's louder than he should be. _«Did you **know** this would happen?»_

 _«Erik, I don't know what **has** happened,»_ she reminds him, trying to be soothing. It's difficult; she's not the maternal type. There's a reason Christian and Jean-Paul asked Cordelia to surrogate for them and not Emma. She saturates her psychic voice with suggestions -- not orders, just suggestions -- of calm and serenity, and says, _«Calm down and tell me what happened. Or come up **here** and tell me what happened. You're probably better off without coffee, if you're this upset.»_

She feels their assent, and can sense them moving closer. She withdraws from their minds and glances at Charles again; he's still asleep, but she supposes he'd want to be awake for this -- whatever it is. She nudges him gently with her mind, bringing him out of sleep without startling him, and the warm smile she receives is _almost_ enough to make her smile back.

He still has the diamonds she'd accidentally cried onto his pillow, the day they finally brought him out of his own mind, but she doesn’t think he has them for their monetary value. They mean something else to him.

"Something's upset Erik and Moira," she explains, helping him sit up, propping sturdy pillows behind him. Charles groans, and she hears the errant _«Lord, I hope they didn't have another argument,»_ , but she doesn't think that's it. She can feel how agitated Erik is, how confused Moira is -- and that's new, now that she thinks about it. She shouldn't be able to _feel_ them without her mind brushing theirs, and she's pulled her telepathy back in to the confines of this room to give them privacy until they get here.

So _why_ can she feel Erik's agitation, Moira's frustration, the string of _notnowGodnotnownotthis_ that isn't even in _English_ but she can somehow understand? Why can she feel cool wood floors beneath her bare feet and the warmth of her second-favourite cashmere bathrobe and the _comforting_ strange weight of a gun tucked into the back of her belt?

She's not even _wearing_ a belt.

"Ow," Charles mutters, looking down at his hands and frowning, as Emma feels the dig of fingernails in her palms, solid enough that she looks down, too, almost expecting to see white lines of pressure in her skin. Her hands are unmarked.

She's not surprised, when Erik and Moira come into the room, to see that Erik is barefoot and Moira is wearing the bathrobe Emma loaned her. She's not surprised to see that Moira's hands are balled into tight fists. She would be even less surprised to find that Erik has a gun beneath his jacket, but she's not going to _ask_.

" _Did you know this would happen_?" Erik demands, looking more on edge than Emma has ever seen him, and that's saying something. He's looking at her more than Charles, and it's a little unnerving to have that sort of attention directed at her, but she's dealt with worse than Erik having a conniption about --

" _What_ happened?" she asks, exasperated. She can guess, but she wants to impress on them that _no_ , she _didn't_ know that this would happen. She'd _warned_ them that the link could have side effects, but _none_ of them had expected anything like this.

"Erik knew I didn't sleep well, and that I'd want coffee," Moira says. Emma can feel her agitation, too, and there's an uncomfortable sense of violation there that's familiar -- she feels it every time she invades a mind in such a fashion that her victim knows about it, and she always feels a little dirty afterward. Moira wraps her arms around herself, looking a little sick, and says, "And I -- heard what he was thinking. I could have _sworn_ he said it out loud."

Charles is looking from one of them to another, frowning, and suddenly asks, "What did you _do_ to bring me back?"

Emma sighs. "You were buried deep in your psyche. If you'd been anyone else, I could have gone in and brought you out myself, but another telepath -- it would have been risky. It still _was_ risky. I couldn't go in on my own, not after we'd been on opposite sides -- you'd never have trusted me. I needed people who were associated with good memories."

"What did you _do_?" Charles repeats, and Emma can feel his growing -- not dread, not exactly, but apprehension. Fear. Fear of -- being cast out, set adrift, being alone.

"I brought us into a shared psychic space," Emma explains. It had been _hard_. "You remember us sharing memories, don't you? I couldn't have done that if I was just bringing Erik and Moira along for the ride; we all had to be linked together, so that we could convince you to come out of your mind. There was no other way I could think of to bring you back."

"You shouldn't have done that," Charles whispers, going pale. Erik and Moira move to his bedside immediately, but his eyes are fixed on Emma, and his expression is a strange mix of horror and relief. She knows, acutely, that he's afraid of being alone, now more than ever, and that he's been clinging to their minds since they brought him out; he just hadn't been aware that even if he _had_ drawn back, he would still have felt them.

"I had no choice," she snaps, immediately gentling her tone when all three of them wince. She feels the pang of hurt as well, and she wonders whose hurt it is. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she continues, "You're important to a lot of people, Charles. More than that, on a purely practical level, an insane telepath is one of the most dangerous people in the world. I explained the risks to Erik and Moira -- the risks that I _knew_ about, at least -- and I did my best to shield them in case you weren't able to tell that we weren't attacking you. I never thought _this_ would happen! There's no _precedent_!"

"There's no precedent of four people who love each other, in whatever configuration, coming together in a shared psychic space created by one of the world's most powerful telepaths," Moira says quietly. "We should have thought of this. _I_ should have thought of it; I know what telepaths can do."

Emma grimaces as she feels second-hand guilt roiling in her gut; she's felt enough of _that_ in her life to not want to have to cope with it when it's not even _hers_. She feels Charles's apology before she hears it, and that brings up something she'd been wondering.

Before she can ask, Moira starts to speak; before Moira can so much as get a syllable out, they're all suddenly, savagely immersed in a memory that's as clear to Emma as if it was her own.

 _\--she walks into the den, smiling at the girls lounging on the floor, watching some Western with Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner on the television. Rahne had begged to be allowed to have her party tonight, so they could watch the movie. Two girls are looking at the screen with the rapt attention that only a fifteen-year-old with a crush can give, and she smiles fondly; she remembers giving the same attention to Robert Mitchum in The Story of G.I. Joe. They all turn to smile or give her waves when she greets them, but they're enthralled by the movie -- all of them except Betsy, who's looking at her with a horrified expression._

 _"What is it?" she asks, a little unnerved, and Betsy's on her feet, pulling Moira out of the room, before she can get her bearings._

 _"There's something in your head," she says urgently, softly, like it's a secret. "Or **not** something. An absence of something. Someone's been in your mind."_

 _She freezes, and looks closely at the girl. Fifteen, mature for her age, already showing the promise of the beauty she's going to be as an adult -- and, it seems, one of the mutants that Charles and Erik **hadn't** found._

 _"Betsy," she says carefully, aware of how delicate a situation this is, "Are you a telepath?"_

 _Betsy shrugs, and for a moment she relaxes, but then the girl says, "I suppose so, if that's what you want to call it? I can . . . I hear people thinking. And I can **see** that there's something wrong in your mind. May I try to fix it, please?"_

 _She hesitates, torn between the desire to **know** what's in that blank space that she's been desperately probing for the last three months and the knowledge that telepaths are far, far more powerful than most people think. The CIA had been worried about Charles getting into secrets in their minds; they hadn't even considered the idea that he might be able to erase memories. Not until she came back with weeks gone._

 _"Not gone," Betsy says earnestly. "Hidden. He must have wanted you to be able to get them back, or he **would** have erased them. Please, Moira," she begs, looking very adult for a fifteen-year-old. "You're so important to Rahne, I know she'd want me to help you. I'll be careful, I promise. I won't go snooping."_

 _She sighs, reaching out to squeeze Betsy's shoulder. "I know you won't," she says, and it's true; Betsy's a good kid, with more respect for privacy than most girls her age. It comes of being the only daughter of a pair of diplomats, she's sure, with an extroverted twin brother. She hasn't seen Brian as much as she has Betsy, given Rahne's at a tricky stage where she dislikes boys who aren't on the silver screen, but she knows enough about both Braddock children to know that Betsy understands the enormity of what she's suggesting._

 _"Are you sure--_

Emma stumbles a little, gasping; Charles's hands are pressing against his temples; Erik is -- over against the wall, back pressed against it, one hand at his throat like he's suffocating. Emma realises that it was Erik's panic that catapulted them out of the memory. She makes a note to talk to Moira about it, about the girl who can release telepathically-repressed memories at _fifteen_ , but right now, her instincts kick in.

"Erik," she says carefully. "Erik, calm down. It's okay. You're--"

 _« **It isn't okay. Stay out. Stay OUT!** »_

They all wince, and Emma hears Charles let out a soft sound of pain; his psyche is still bruised enough that the rejection hurts him. Tears that aren't hers spring to Emma's eyes, and she wipes them away, frustrated and scared. She's only ever seen Erik reacting like this after nightmares, and she knows from experience that he won't let her try to soothe him the way she helps Azazel sleep sometimes, after his dreams of fire.

"Erik." Charles's voice breaks through the psychic clamour, somehow. Erik's still gasping for breath, hyperventilating, but he looks at Charles, dread and panic clear in his eyes. Charles meets his gaze and says softly, "It _will_ be all right, my friend."

 _«Calm your mind.»_

Erik lets out a helpless little laugh, closing his eyes as if he can will them all away if he's not looking at them. This close, there's too much bleed through the link; it's impossible for Emma to block out the tangled jumble of memory and pain.

 _\-- I'm going to count to three and then I'll move the coin -- please, Herr Doktor -- left a bit of a hole in my life -- count to three and then I'll move the coin -- let's just say I'm Frankenstein's monster -- you have to let go! -- count to three and I'll -- I know what this means to you but you're going to die -- I thought I was alone -- peace was never an option -- you can do this. Calm your mind -- count to three and -- he's going to hate me -- count to three -- she didn't do this -- we want the same thing -- count to -- oh, my friend, we do not -- count -- sorry, Charles, it's not that I don't trust you -- don't want him in my mind, don't want him to know -- it didn't change anything, it still -- count -- **hurts** \-- oh, God, what did I -- move the coin -- couldn't stop a damn **bullet** \-- he's going to hate me --_

 _« **Erik**.»_ Charles's psychic voice is firm, gentle, insistent despite the pain she can still feel radiating from them all. _«Erik, listen to me. I'm -- I was angry, yes. We have a lot to discuss. But I am **not** letting you tear yourself apart, my friend. **Calm your mind**.»_

 _«Breathe.»_ Moira's mind is softer than Charles's, but no less firm. _«Breathe to my voice, Erik. Breathe to my count. Just listen to Charles and Emma and I, and breathe. It's going to be all right.»_

Emma doesn't speak, too busy keeping her mind focused on Erik, focused on projecting calm at him. He's never let her comfort him telepathically before, but he's never been this worked-up before, and she'll cope with him hating her if that's what happens, as long as he's still _breathing_. She sends waves of comfort and calm over him; no orders, just suggestions. She can feel Charles and Moira's minds joining hers, surrounding Erik's panic with their own strength and tenacity and -- love. It's been so long since she's felt that sort of love with that sort of strength that its power stuns her, and she falters for a moment, drawing back slightly, feeling as though she's intruding on something private.

 _«Don't go.»_

She can't tell whose voice that was. Sharp edges and cool strength and deep compassion are blended together, drawing her back. They need her help -- she can still feel Erik's panic, although it's duller now, retreating -- but that's not the only reason she's being drawn back into the mix, she can tell. It's impossible to hide anything, blended together the way they are, and she can _feel_ the affection, fondness, love, respect, that pours into the link and tempers the panic, the pain, the coldness.

 _«It doesn't make any **sense** ,»_ someone protests, and it might be her or it might be Erik, she's not sure. She feels like she's losing herself in this tumble of ErikEmmaMoiraCharles, and that's frightening, and isn't that the reason Erik was panicking in the first place?

 _«We have to go deeper,»_ someone says, and she _thinks_ it might be her. Betsy's returning of Moira's memories, and the subsequent realisation of how Charles sealed the memories away without destroying them, has given her an idea, but it'll be tricky. Risky. They're going so deep into each other that she's not sure they're ever going to be able to completely lock each other out again, but if it works, they'll be able to have privacy in their own heads unless they _want_ to share thoughts. Emotions will still translate across, but that's better than knowing -- and feeling, she realises, as she feels Erik's chest tight from hyperventilating, and the cuts in Moira's palms from her fingernails -- everything that they all think and feel.

 _«Deeper.»_

So strange, to be this connected to another being. Someone -- Charles, she thinks, but she's not sure -- thinks that it's as intimate as sex, but it's more than that for her. Sex has always been a means to an end; sometimes that end has been purely pleasure, but more often than not, it's been political. She's never _loved_ anyone that way, and for a moment she gets a flash of the dark-haired woman they'd seen Erik with in his memories and a moment of -- not _pity_ , but compassion from Charles, sorry that she's never had that connection. She isn't sorry, not really, but she does think, vaguely, that it might have been nice.

So strange, to be this _deep_ in someone else's mind and in her own mind at the same time. She can feel Charles and Erik and Moira around her, in her, and the edges are blurred so that she can't tell them apart anymore. Threads of Moira have bled into Charles and Erik and Emma; trickles of Emma have melted into Moira and Erik and Charles. Charles's mind has spread over them all like a blanket; Erik has drawn pieces of them to him like a magnet. She sees all this in an instant, and she can _feel_ them, much clearer than she's ever felt anyone before.

Erik's fear, of Charles hating him, of them finding out that killing Sebastian has solved approximately nothing, of the nightmares, of waking one day to find he's no better than the men he hates. Images, over and over in Erik's mind, of being unable to turn the bombs back, of the only people he has in the world dying around him on the beach because he's too weak again. Images of turning the bombs on the ships, and not stopping this time, sending thousands of men to their deaths in a moment of terrified, angry hurt, of being the killer, the _monster_ , that he's been convinced, for so long, that he is.

 _«You aren't a monster.»_ Cool strength, deep compassion, firm conviction. _«You aren't a monster. We don't hate you.»_

Beneath the immediate fears, they find the bone-deep fear that's been a part of Erik's life since the camps, the need for somewhere safe, a need so strong that it's almost like his body's need for oxygen. The need for his people to be safe -- once upon a time his people were the Jews, persecuted for something they couldn't help being born as; now they're mutants, persecuted for the same reasons. Erik wants a safe place for them, a safe world for them, but he's terrified of them becoming this war's Jewish people to the government's pogrom, and fear -- as he told Charles -- all too easily turns into hate.

Emma knows, from experience, that hate is easier to bear than fear.

Erik bleeds into them until they know him intimately, and then, with that knowledge, Emma and Charles and Moira build a barrier between them and Erik's mind, a smooth glass-and-metal construction with windows that can be opened when Erik wants them to be. As the barrier comes up, the bleed lessens. He's still there, in the shared psychic space, but now it's because he wants to be.

Moira.

Moira's anger, at Charles's hiding of her memories, of Erik's actions at the beach, for all she understands them now. Her anger at the CIA's behaviour, both during and after the mission. Her fear for Rahne, for Betsy Braddock, for the countless other mutants that she knows are out there, that the CIA have classified as potential threats. She has been keeping their existence from the CIA; it hasn't been difficult, since the beach, and Emma can feel and appreciate Moira's frustration with the CIA, with being a woman trying to have a career that isn't secretarial or nursing, and her frustration with the men who think a woman's place is still in the home.

Beneath the anger and the fear, there's so much strength. There are old insecurities, about her heritage, about whether she's good for Rahne, about whether her parents are disappointed that she went into the CIA instead of into medicine the way they both did, but those insecurities are bound back by steel bars, taken out every now and then to be given air and then packed away securely. They can feel the current of _I'm not letting any of you get lost now_ running through Moira's mind, the fact that she has thrown her lot in with them rather than the humans who would give her any job she wanted if she delivered the Brotherhood to them. She's not one of them by blood, but she's made herself one of them by action, and they can't discount that. There will be no more hiding of memories.

They build a barrier around Moira's mind, glass-and-metal, the twin to the one around Erik's mind, and the bleed lessens. They can still feel her, she can still feel them, but as with Erik, now, she's here because she wants to be.

They don't have to build barriers around Charles and Emma's minds; as telepaths, they're able to hold their own barriers, even against this strange new exchange. But this deeply, twined this closely with each other, all it takes is the touch of Charles's uncertainty as they finish the wall around Moira's mind for them to know that something is still bothering him, and almost without conferring, Emma, Erik, and Moira turn their attention to him, trying to assure him that it's going to be all right.

The strength of his fear makes them nauseous, but they persevere. They risked madness to bring him out of his own mind; they can bear fear to ensure that they're all safe and sane. Emma can feel Moira and Erik radiating assurance to Charles, promising him that he's not alone, that they're not locking him out, they're just making it easier for them all to cope with this new, strange sort of sharing. They're not rejecting him.

Emma is surprised by the symmetries in Charles's mind. She'd never been able to touch him this deeply while she was working with Shaw; she'd always been too busy protecting Shaw from Charles. Now, without that distraction, he's more than the spoiled, arrogant rich boy that she'd assumed him to be, with his English accent and his impeccable clothing. Rich, yes, but there's darkness in his childhood that seeps into his adult life, an unconscious belief that he's unworthy of love, a compulsive need to _know_ what people are thinking so he can be sure of not doing the wrong thing. She feels an _«oh, Charles»_ from Moira, sharp, dark anger from Erik and a promise that if this Kurt Marko were still alive, he wouldn't remain so for long, and Charles whispers, _«I don't want you to kill for me, Erik,»_ but the promise eases some of the fear. People don't make such promises for people they don't care for.

 _«Parents are supposed to love us,»_ Emma says softly, surprised at how alike they are. Both betrayed by blood, both retreating into their ability to ensure that the betrayal is never repeated. She never thought to have this much in common with him. _«Family is supposed to be there for us.»_

 _«We're family.»_ That, surprisingly, comes from Erik, and they all _know_ how much it costs him to say it. Erik hasn't had family since his mother was murdered. His psychic voice sounds choked, thick with pain and regret and a terrible sort of hope. _«We can be the family we choose.»_

 _«The link is still there.»_ Emma's a little surprised to discover that she's the one speaking. _«We won't bleed over anymore, but I don't think we can break it, not easily. Charles and I could probably work it out eventually, but…»_

 _«I don't want to.»_ Charles's psychic voice is tired, and Emma knows that he's been reaching out with it since he woke, keeping himself in contact with all the minds around him. She knows, somehow, that he's been discreet with that contact, not _reading_ anyone, just assuring himself that they're there. She can't imagine how exhausting it must be, and she understands, now, why he's been sleeping so much.

 _«You don't have to.»_ She doesn't know who said it; the words come mingled, more than one voice in them. _«You can let go. We'll be right here.»_

They can feel him relax, and they can feel each other relax. Erik's fear is fading, his panic gone. Moira's anger is there but lessened; she understands, now, what she hadn't before, and she accepts that Charles _knows_ he did wrong, had had good intentions, will make it right somehow. Charles is tired, but his fear, too, is fading.

Emma realises with a start that something inside her has thawed, that she doesn't feel so _cold_ anymore.

As they pull back from the link, someone speaks, and Emma's not sure who it is, isn't even sure if it wasn't _her_ , or maybe, somehow, all of them.

 _«No more being alone.»_


	8. Facade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wandering the halls late at night, Hank has a chance encounter that helps more than just him work out where they stand.

The compound is dark by the time Hank gathers the nerve to venture out of Raven's suite. She's sleeping curled up in the bed, a work of art in cobalt and crimson that he's still nervous about touching with the hands that end in claws now. He could wake her, he knows, but she's tired, and he thinks it's about time he left the suite. It's been over a week since they were rescued, and he's beginning to feel a little cramped.

Raven had brought him clothes from _somewhere_ , tailored to fit him reasonably well, and he's not sure how she got them but he's grateful for them. No shoes, but then, he doesn't really wear shoes these days, and it's quieter to go barefoot at night. He pads down wood-floored corridors, walking aimlessly at first, until the scent of cooking meat hits his nose and he veers towards it almost unconsciously. Now that he thinks about it, he's _hungry_.

It's not until he reaches the kitchen that he realises that cooking implies a _person_ is already in the kitchen, a realisation that's confirmed when he stops in the doorway and sees the man standing at the stove. He's not sure who it is, at first; all he can see is a dark suit, broad shoulders, dark hair. And then a red tail swings out to grab a small skillet and he realises: the teleporter.

Raven had assured him that the teleporter - Azazel? - can be trusted, that Erik has made the Brotherhood into something better than it was when Shaw was in charge. Hank isn't even really thinking about whether Azazel can be _trusted_ ; he's too busy staring at the other man's tail and wondering, vaguely, how the hell Azazel managed to survive this long, looking the way he does.

The smell of cooking bacon reaches him again and his nose twitches, catlike; his stomach growls. The sound can't have been loud enough to carry, but Azazel half-turns to glance at him, giving him what he supposes passes as a smile and gesturing for him to come into the kitchen and sit down.

"Bacon?" the red-skinned mutant offers, as he expertly cracks four eggs into a bowl and whisks them into a froth, using a spatula in his tail to turn the bacon. It's a surprisingly elegant dance, and Hank can't help thinking that it must be useful, having what amounts to a third arm. He remembers all too clearly how useful that tail is to Azazel in combat, but this . . . this isn't combat. He can afford to relax.

Azazel is still looking at him expectantly, and Hank realises that he's waiting for an answer. He nods, managing to say, "Yes. Thank you."

"One can never be sure," Azazel remarks, setting more bacon in the first skillet. "Erik does not eat it and Janos is vegetarian, so I thought it best to ask. I have not seen you about the compound before now. Are you feeling better?"

Such polite, effortless small talk. Hank stares at him, not sure of how to answer. What should he say? What _can_ he say? He's never been good with people, even back when he looked _mostly_ normal, and it only got worse after he was _stupid_ enough to test the serum on himself. He has no idea how socialisation works any more.

There is a pile of chopped things on a board beside the stove; Azazel pours out half of the whisked egg mix, waits a moment, and then sprinkles it with the chopped things. Mushrooms and tomatoes and cheese, Hank's nose tells him, and he flinches a little, wishing his sense of smell wasn't such a firm reminder of the way he looks now. Even after Raven's assurances, even after Charles, Sean, and Alex assured him that they don't think of him any differently, he's acutely aware of his new body, and acutely aware that he hates it.

"It must be three am," he manages to say eventually, breaking the silence. Azazel glances at him again, inviting him to continue, and Hank stammers, "Aren't - aren't you up a bit early for breakfast?"

"For anyone else, perhaps," Azazel agrees, flipping the first omelette. "But I keep odd hours. A good thing, too, or you would not have anyone here to cook for you, would you?"

"I can . . ." Hank trails off, awkwardly; he _can't_ cook for himself, actually. Not anything more complicated than rice or pasta with canned sauce. He burns almost everything else.

Azazel's chuckle is low and distinctly non-mocking. After a moment, he slips the first omelette onto a plate and sets on the table in front of Hank, saying, "Eat. You need to keep up your energy. If I am not mistaken, your metabolism will have sped up with that transformation. A body with that level of muscle will need more protein."

Hank blinks at him, a little thrown to hear such scientific talk coming from . . . well, from someone who looks the way Azazel does. It's an uncomfortable thought, that he expects someone whose physical appearance is demonic to _act_ demonic; it harkens back uncomfortably to the conversation he had with Raven before the beach. He never thought of himself as shallow, but . . .

Azazel lets him eat in silence while he cooks the second omelette, eventually taking a seat across from Hank and starting his own breakfast. He speaks on and off as he eats, all harmless, almost mindless small talk, coaxing answers out of Hank, until Hank realises that he's been finished his food for at least ten minutes and has been going on about his time at Harvard for easily as long, and that Azazel probably isn't actually interested in what a fifteen-year-old did at college.

"I should let you get back to what you were doing," he mutters, suddenly self-conscious, but he doesn't stand up. He _wants_ to, but he can't bring himself to. He looks at Azazel, waiting for the slight relief to cross his face, for the assent that comes just a touch too quickly, and realises that he's waiting for a sign that his body _does_ disturb the other man, even if Azazel won't admit it.

He doesn't get it. Azazel stands and stacks their plates in the sink, but his movements are natural, easy, and he turns his back to Hank without even flinching. As he works, he says over his shoulder, "You need not go if you do not want to. Has Raven kept you appraised of the situation?"

Hank nods, feeling uncertain. After another moment of silence, he clears his throat and says, "She said everyone's recovering decently. She said there was something going on with Charles and the others . . .?"

Azazel nods, turning back to the table. " _Da_ \-- excuse me, yes." He looks frustrated for a moment, and Hank realises that he must sometimes get tired of having to speak in English when it's so clearly not his native tongue. Shrugging a little, Azazel continues, "Something telepathic; I do not understand all of the details, but I believe they have sorted it between them. The bandages come off Sean's throat tomorrow, and I believe Alex is regaining his strength, now that the fever has broken. And you are out and about. Encouraging, I would say."

"Darwin?"

Azazel's smile is bright, and a little unnerving, as he replies, "Oh, I _like_ him. He is making plans already to find the man who ordered all of this." At Hank's obvious surprise, he raises an eyebrow. "You did not think Erik was going to let it stand? The five of you are safe, but there are countless other mutants who do not have a telepath checking on them every month. No, he will not let such an installation stand. We destroyed the facility that held you, but there will be others. Darwin believes we should cut off the serpent's head, and I concur."

"The serpent's head?" Hank asks, confused. They seem to have so much information -- of course they do. They had to have gathered a lot of information to be able to find them.

"Stephen Lang," Azazel says, nodding. "And the men who contracted him. The humans who thought to hide their atrocities behind pretty words." His smile is savage now, and Hank shivers. "It will not go well for them."

"Why do you hate humans?" he asks suddenly, unable to keep the words back. He wants to know. _Needs_ to know whether it's inevitable for him, too, because of the way he looks now. If anyone can tell him whether he's doomed himself, it's Azazel.

There's a moment of silence, and then the red-skinned mutant shrugs.

"I do not hate them."

Hank opens his mouth to protest – of course Azazel hates humans; how can he _not_ , when Hank has seen him killing so many – and Azazel lifts a hand to silence him.

"Hate is simple," he says quietly. "Hate is a construct, a conceit. I did not hate any of them men I killed in the CIA building; I did what I was ordered to do, and I did it to protect myself. Janos and Emma also, of course, but I will admit, chiefly myself." He shrugs again, smiling sardonically. "They were accepting of you; do you think they would have been so kindly-disposed towards me? Humans have taught me that I cannot trust them, but I do not hate them. I understand that they act as they always will, and I behave accordingly."

Hank swallows; it's a damning picture Azazel is painting, and he has to admit that he _can't_ say the CIA would have been as accepting of Azazel as they were of the others – if you could call the behaviour of some of the agents _accepting_. They'd been cruel enough to Raven, Sean, Alex, and Darwin, whose mutations were virtually invisible – at least, Raven's was when she was hiding, and there's an uncomfortable sense of guilt when he thinks that – but they'd been unkind to Hank, and they'd been so much worse to Angel. Suddenly he can understand why she went with Shaw.

"You shouldn't have killed them," he says lamely. He can't even put conviction into the words. He doesn't think the agents deserved to _die_ , but he's having trouble coming up with convincing arguments, after what humans put them all through so recently.

"Perhaps not," Azazel says, surprising him. "Your Moira has been quite instructive to us all on the matter of human tolerance. I would not have thought that a human would fall in love with a man who could read her mind. _I_ could not. And yet, here she is, fighting other humans for our sake. It is not what we expected."

"Why were you with Shaw? You say you don't hate humans, and he obviously did; why were you with him?"

Azazel shakes his head, smiling a little. "Sebastian did not _hate_ humans. He saw them as inferior, certainly, but saying he hated them would be like saying a medical researcher hates the mice he tests his cures on. As to why I was with him . . . that is a long story."

"We have all night," Hank points out, gathering his courage, and he's rewarded by a low chuckle.

"True. It is complicated, though. Would you like coffee while I talk?"

Coffee. He hasn't had coffee in _ages_ , it feels like, and his relief is obviously evident on his face, because Azazel offers him a smile that seems almost sympathetic and turns to set up the percolator. He turns back to Hank while it heats up, leaning against the counter, his tail idly swishing through the air behind him.

"I was born in Russia," he says, smiling a little. "As is probably obvious. My family were devout people; my appearance was, no doubt, quite the shock to them. Still, my mother loved her children, and I think even my father loved me in time."

"You looked like that as a baby?" Hank asks. He's itching to ask for more details, for how long ago this was; Azazel's older than any of the other mutants they've found, and he _might_ be able to give them a date for when mutation first started showing up. He keeps quiet for now, though, letting the other man tell his story.

"Yes. Red-skinned, with a tail; my sister called me demon-child when I was young, all in play, but my mother scolded her for it whenever she found out. It was difficult for us all; more so for my parents, I imagine. All _I_ knew was that I was not to go outside."

He pauses to pour the coffee, adding more sugar thank Hank really thinks can be good for _anyone_ to his own cup and passing Hank his to let him doctor it himself, and then continues.

"I was twelve when my grandparents found out about me. My parents had told them that I had been stillborn, but there were too many inconsistencies, it seemed, and they grew suspicious." He leans against the counter again, cradling his coffee in both hands, and Hank wonders how he can sound so calm talking about this. "They came at night, late, while my parents were sleeping. My sister had a fever, and I was sitting with her. I heard the door open, but my parents had always told me never to answer the door. I was not to let people see me. I should have hidden, but Annushka was too ill to be left alone."

He goes quiet for a moment, sipping his coffee, and Hank realises that Azazel's tail is lashing, like an agitated cat.

"My grandparents saw me. They were more strongly religious than my parents; you can imagine what they thought, I am certain." He smiles sharply, and Hank shivers. "I did not know I could teleport, that young, but necessity breeds ingenuity, and I discovered what I could do when they tried to burn me."

Hank swallows thickly. "They tried to burn you?"

Azazel's answering shrug is nonchalant, but Hank can practically _smell_ the tension, the heightened adrenaline just from _telling_ the story. He wants to tell Azazel that he can stop, but he thinks, somehow, that a part of Azazel needs to talk.

"They thought I was a demon-child," he says, his voice casual. "Naturally, burning would send me back to where I came from."

"That's awful," Hank whispers.

"That is the way people are," Azazel corrects. "Frightened people do stupid, cruel things. _That_ , at least, is not confined to humans."

Hank swallows again; the way Azazel is speaking, he sounds so _sure_. Tentatively, Hank asks, "So you – you were with Shaw after that?"

"Not at first," Azazel replies. "For a time, I lived on my own. It is much easier to steal what you need to survive when you are not hampered by locks and walls. I stole books and newspapers as well, because I refused to be demonic _and_ stupid. I taught myself. It was not a fulfilling life, but it was one I could manage while I was still young. As I got older, though, I began to want more. Living alone gets very wearying, and so I ventured closer to humans. Never close enough for them to see me, but enough that I could see them.

"I was living near a village in eastern Russia in the fifties, when there was a fire. There was little help nearby, and I had come to be fond of the people there, in a strange sort of way. I suppose watching them made them feel a little more like family to be. Regardless of the reason, I tried to help."

Hank isn't sure he wants to hear the rest of this story, but he _did_ ask. He tightens his hands around his coffee cup, watching Azazel as the other man speaks.

"Most of them hardly saw me; I suppose they told themselves that they must have been imagining what they _did_ see, that my skin was only red from heat or the reflection of the flames. I was getting tired by the end of the night, but there was still so much to do. One of the houses had collapsed, and I could hear someone screaming inside it, so I did what I felt was best. I teleported in and brought her out." Another sharp, almost feral smile crosses his face. "I seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; we emerged in front of her husband, with the flames behind us. Only imagine what he must have thought."

Hank can imagine, all too well.

"That is where I got this," Azazel says, touching the scar on his face. "They would have done worse, I imagine. I should have teleported away sooner – I would have, if I had not been so tired – and they managed to do a fair bit of damage. Nothing lasting, but enough that when Sebastian found me, I was happy enough to accept his help, once he proved that he was a mutant."

"They tried to hurt you after you'd saved them?" Hank asks, aghast.

"They were frightened," Azazel says, shrugging again. "I do not hate them for it, but they proved a point that has yet to be _dis_ proven to me. People – humans, mutants, it does not matter – do terrible things when they are afraid, and they will always be afraid of us. Sebastian had a plan. It was not a nice plan, and there was no guarantee that it would work, but I cannot help but believe that the world _would_ be better if everybody was either human or mutant. We cannot erase mutantkind without genocide, but we can nudge humans into mutation, given the application of correct stressers."

"Eugenics," Hank whispers. "Does Erik know you feel that way?"

"It is something we have . . . discussions about." Azazel's smile is a little less sharp now, thank God. "We have agreed to disagree on that matter."

Hank looks down at his coffee, trying not to think too hard about what Azazel's story implies. Finally, he looks up and says quietly, "So you think humans will never learn to accept us?"

"Now, that is a difficult question. Two months ago, I would have said yes, certainly, humans will never accept mutants," Azazel says. "Now? I am not so certain. I still believe that we must be proactive in our defence, of ourselves and each other, but I am not so certain that death must play a part, except in specific cases. I will not hesitate to destroy the men and women who hold mutants against their wills, but others . . . perhaps I am hasty in judging everyone." He shrugs. "My experiences being as they are, I think, perhaps, my prejudices are understandable."

Hank can't really argue that.

"Still." Azazel finishes his coffee, setting the mug in the sink. "Sebastian's flaw was in thinking that we are defined by what we are. 'We never use our powers against another mutant', he loved to claim – noble, perhaps, but try explaining to Erik and Armando that what Sebastian did to _them_ was not _harm_ simply because he did not use his power. Mutants are not automatically our allies simply by virtue of being mutants. A certain level of solidarity is necessary, of course, while we are still at risk, but we are more than _what_ we are. Raven is more than her ability to change forms; Janos is more than a silent force of destruction." His smile is sharp again, but it's somehow softer than it was before. "And you and I, comrade, need not be defined by how people see us. You were a man of science before; your serum did not change that, Raven assures me."

"What about you?" Hank asks, swallowing heavily. Raven still believes in him. After everything he's done to her, that's a miracle he didn't expect.

Azazel laughs quietly, and says, "I? Perhaps there is something left of the man who saved a girl from fire. Sebastian had no use for him, but I think Erik and Charles have plans for us all. I think it is going to be a very interesting experiment."


	9. Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the boys mostly recovered, the combined X-Men and Brotherhood hold a council of war to decide how best to deal with their common enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! As you've probably noticed, updating has been less frequent lately, because of a combination of a new job and health issues. I just want to let you all know that I have every intention of finishing this, and that I have the rest of the story outlined, if loosely. Please just bear with me, and I hope it meets your expectations.

"We're not just going to sit around and do _nothing_ , are we?"

Three weeks after the rescue, almost everyone has recovered, physically at least, and they're eating dinner when Raven speaks up.

"They took _our people_. The guy in charge is still out there. We're _not_ going to just sit here while they might be doing this to other mutants, are we?"

Looking at her, Charles feels an intense surge of pride. She's grown into herself, his little sister, during her time away from him. Maybe that's what she needed, time to find out who _she_ was, out of his shadow. He can feel the edges of her mind on his periodic sweeps, but he doesn't go deeper; he doesn't need to, to feel how much more confident she is, how much more self-assured. She's not the little sister he remembers, but he's started to get a feel for this older Raven, and he quite likes her, he thinks.

He still feels a stab of protectiveness as she talks. She's talking about fighting, and he can't help it; he doesn't want her anywhere near combat. She's not asking for permission, though, he knows her well enough to know that. Another change: three years ago, she would have been looking to him for approval. Now she's looking at him and Erik, and her expression is challenging.

"No," Erik said quietly. "We're not going to just sit here. Emma has been investigating avenues of approach; we couldn't do anything until we found out where Lang was operating. The facility in Colorado was his brainchild, but we can't count on him having been there when we destroyed it."

All eyes turn to Emma; her expression doesn't change, but Charles can feel her discomfort rise a little at the expectation in their eyes. She doesn't want to disappoint them, and that's not an entirely welcome realisation for her. He extends a brief burst of comfort, and the way she looks at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a smile that the rest of her face doesn't show, is reassuring. He'd been concerned that they'd all close themselves off, after he and Emma built the walls around Erik and Moira's minds, but they're still there, close enough that he can feel them and not panic.

"I found one of them this morning," Emma says, setting her glass down. "Stephen Lang has been working directly for General Creed."

"Creed?" Alex asks, frowning. "The Department of Defence guy?"

Department of Defence. This goes deeper than Charles had anticipated, and he can't help a shiver. How are they supposed to fight the Department of Defence? Someone – Moira, he thinks – sends reassurance to him, and it helps, enough for him to keep listening, although the blankness, the cool dull _emptiness_ , stands at the edge of consciousness, waiting to swallow him up again.

"They have a base of operations, separate to the _holding facility_ ," Emma says, her mouth twisting around the words like they taste bad. "Where they have the 'volunteers'. Lang works there, primarily. His job is developing countermeasures against different mutations, so of course they'll have him where he'll have the most access to mutations."

"So there's a high risk of casualties," Hank says, his brow furrowed. "I don't like that. They probably don't really know what's happening to them; God knows I didn't. They're being taken advantage of."

"So we go in smart." Erik rubs the back of his neck, thinking it over. "Infiltration, rather than brute force."

Charles's blood runs cold. "You're talking about sending someone in there like a lamb to the slaughter. We can't. We can't ask anyone to take that risk."

"No. But I can volunteer."

They all stare at Janos. He shrugs self-consciously, rubbing at his throat like he can coax his damaged voice back to its old self, and gives them a helpless little smile.

"They know you five," he says softly, nodding to Charles, Hank, Alex, Sean, and Darwin. "They assuredly know Erik and Emma. Azazel, my friend, you're hard to miss, and chances are they know of Angel and Raven. You _could_ take on a different form," he acknowledges, nodding to Raven, "But imitating another mutation would be difficult."

He winces, picking up his glass and taking a sip of water before continuing. Charles lifts his fingers to his temple, offering to translate, but Janos shakes his head, obviously needing to say this himself. Charles can understand that, so he nods, lowering his hand and listening.

"I'm unremarkable," Janos says, unselfconsciously. "Certainly when compared to Azazel or Emma. The only people to have seen me close are dead." Regret spasms across his face, but he continues. "And my mutation – well, one could understand why I want it studied."

Beside him, Sean has gone pale, and as soon as Janos stops speaking, Sean starts, protesting, "You can't! It's-"

"Dangerous," Janos finishes for him, reaching over to squeeze his hand lightly. "Yes, but this place is, according to Emma, voluntary. At least at first. I trust I won't be there for long. I go in first, get the layout, commit a few small acts of sabotage, and then Azazel brings in the cavalry when I confirm that Lang is there. There's not much point attacking if he isn't; we'd still have our worst enemy out there, and we might accidentally injure innocents."

He falls silent, the effort of that much speech obviously having pained him, and beside him, Sean bites his lip. Charles can feel the distress rolling off the redhead, and he instinctively sends a small burst of comfort to Sean, saying quietly, "We won't let anything happen, Sean. Emma and I will be in his head the entire time."

Hank looks concerned. "Charles, that's an awful lot of strain," he says dubiously. "Are you sure you're strong enough?"

"I will be," Charles says, trying not to feel Moira and Erik's concern, Emma's suspicion. She already knows what he's planning. "I will be, when you finish rebuilding Cerebro."

 

 

It takes Hank less time than Charles expected to build a new Cerebro in the bell tower. Erik helps, moving huge slabs of metal for him, and Charles doesn't ask where Erik got the money for the supplies that they need. Azazel's smug expression when Charles runs into him late at night, and the sudden appearance of exactly the sort of wiring and electronics that they need, paint a very clear picture, and Charles finds himself wondering whether Azazel _enjoys_ the act of theft just because he _can_. He rather thinks that if they'd all been born in another time, Azazel would have made a very convincing good-natured pirate.

The bell tower is the highest place in the compound, and has already been sealed against the elements. When Charles asks why, Erik looks uncomfortable, and he hears a faint _«I always hoped we might build it here»_. He's not sure whether Erik had wanted a Cerebro for Emma or if he'd been hoping Charles would join him eventually, and he's not sure he should ask. It feels as though talking too deeply about that sort of thing will shatter the fragile balance they've found, especially this close to what feels like a battle.

Two months after their rescue, Hank declares his new construction ready for testing. It's smaller than the first Cerebro, sleeker, and the metal is seamed together almost invisibly; a mark of Erik's assistance, Charles is sure. This Cerebro is designed to accommodate Charles's wheelchair, and as Charles approaches the bell tower for the first time, he's aware that it, too, is designed to accommodate a man who can't walk. He avoids looking at the others as they mount the ramp, but he knows, through Emma and through Erik himself, that Azazel, Janos, Angel, and Raven had said nothing while they repaired the old school, while Erik ensured that there were no steps on the ground floor where there could be ramps, that the ground floor bathrooms were spacious and had rails.

He'd wanted Charles with him from the start. That depth of emotion, that sort of _need_ , is overwhelming, and Charles forces himself to push it to the back of his mind. He can't be distracted, not now.

Cerebro starts up with a barely-there hum, and the expression of pride on Hank's face is heartening, replacing the sombre look he's had so often lately. All of them have. Living in fear of another attack is wearing on them all, and as much as Charles hates planning for a war, he knows they have to do this. The spectre of Lang hanging over their heads will crush them if they wait too long.

Their first experiment is the vital one – to find out whether Charles will be able to track Janos in the facility. He sets the brake on his wheelchair and reaches for the helmet, opens his mind just a little to let Emma touch it a little more. She'll be translating; he'll be too caught up in the rush of minds, in keeping Janos's separate. It's an oddly exhilarating thing, working with another telepath. He'd spent his entire life waiting to meet one, and while Emma's not quite what he expected, he's grown fonder of her than he'd thought he would.

As he slides the helmet on, he feels her in his mind, a diamond-bright touch that just waits, without rummaging. He brushes against her mind in welcome and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and focusing on what Cerebro is letting him feel.

 _There_. An odd mind, dark and whispering like a night breeze, but a warm one. Tinted with pain and regret, but coloured with affection and contentment. They've been drilling, this last month, so that all of the non-telepaths recognise benign telepathic presence in their mind, and he _feels_ Janos smile, hears the welcoming _Hello, Charles._

 _«He has him,»_ he hears Emma report. _«Azazel, make the jump.»_

He loses Janos's mind for a moment when Azazel teleports the two of them away, and casts about with Cerebro, seeking that specific flavour to the mind that he fixes in his memory as Janos's. It takes barely five seconds, but that's too long.

 _«He has him. Jump again.»_

They drill, over and over, until all Charles can think of is that brief instant where he loses Janos's mind, and finding it again as quickly as possible. Every time he finds Janos, Azazel jumps again, ranging as far north as Canada, as far south as Peru. Those jumps are harder to trace, they take longer, and by the time Charles tracks them down to Ecuador, his mind feels somehow hot and swollen, like his legs used to when he went on a too-long run.

Suddenly, there's cool comfort in his mind, and Erik and Moira both insisting that he's done for the day. Emma agrees, calling Janos and Azazel back, and when Charles withdraws his mind from Cerebro's amplification, Erik is already lifting the helmet and setting it on its plinth, as Moira lays a cool cloth against the back of Charles's neck.

Azazel looks exhausted, and Charles feels briefly guilty, but the red-skinned mutant waves off his attempt at an apology, saying, "It is necessary. I do not wish to lose anyone."

Charles is too tired to care about eating, but Moira and Erik and Emma bully him into it, insisting that he needs to keep his strength up. Now that they know he can keep track of Janos's mind no matter where he is – on the American continents, at least – the infiltration will be soon. They all need to keep their strength up.

Dinner is a tense affair. The others – those who are well enough, which by now is almost everyone – have been working out every day, getting themselves back into fighting form, and everyone's tired. Everyone is also very, very aware that if their plan goes wrong, some of them will probably die. Angel and Darwin are flanking Alex, whose expression is painfully guarded. He's regained the weight that he lost during the fever, but he hasn't regained his confidence, not completely. Charles can tell from the way Alex keeps reaching out to touch Darwin's shoulder or leg that he's trying desperately to remind himself that Darwin is still there.

Almost as soon as Azazel and Janos enter the kitchen, Sean is by Janos's side, and he doesn't leave throughout the course of the meal. There's an attachment there. Charles isn't sure what the nature of it is, and he's not _entirely_ sure he approves; Sean is young, inexperienced. And this is hardly the best time to be getting into anything complicated.

 _«Says the man with a four-way link in his head,»_ Emma says softly through their link. _«Don't interfere, Charles. Let the boys sort it out themselves.»_

Hank and Raven are sitting close together, and he's almost absently running his fingers over the back of her hand, tracing the texture of her skin. Considering how uncomfortable he'd been with her natural form when they first met, Charles considers it an improvement.

Finally, Raven speaks up, saying, "We need to go over the game plan."

They have to. Charles might wish that they could forget about it for a little while, but they can't. Not with so much at stake.

"I'll have a little chat with one of the scientists," Emma says quietly, cold anger in her voice. None of them like scientists anymore, even Hank. "Convince her that she met a poor young man whose mutation is causing him trouble, who was all too eager to be part of the program when she suggested it. That's how we get Janos in."

"Once we have confirmation that Lang is in the facility, we go in," Erik adds. "Not with guns blazing; we go in smart. Raven, you've studied General Creed for the last three weeks; do you think you've got him down?"

Raven nods, looking a little sick. Charles can't blame her. To have to turn into Graydon Creed, the man whose order _started_ this whole thing – he couldn't imagine doing it. But they need Raven's power, and he's immensely proud of her for being strong enough to overcome her dislike of the idea.

"That's our in. The General will be conducting a routine inspection of the facility he ordered, bringing in some other specialists. We can expect Lang to know what the rest of us look like, but not the common workers. We'll be utilising disguises, and Emma's going to be broadcasting enough confusion that they shouldn't be able to recognise us. We aren't all going," Erik says firmly. Charles can feel his conviction and is glad of it; they'll need every bit of strength they have to get through this whole. "We can't put all our eggs in one basket. They found out about the mansion; they could have found out about this place. I want to leave some fighters here, too."

He turns to look at Angel. "You're better in open-air combat; I want you to stay here and patrol the perimeter. Azazel, we need you for transport, but you should stand off once we get close. Wait until you get a signal from Emma before you come into the fight. Emma, you're with me, but leave hand-to-hand to the melee fighters. You're better at distraction and containment. Charles, where do you want your boys?"

It's a bit odd, hearing Erik speak like a tactician. He'd been too coldly angry before, unable to plan ahead more than he needed to in order to find Shaw. Now he's thinking tactically, and Charles is both proud of him and very, very glad that, for now at least, they're on the same side.

"Sean, you're not quite recovered enough for the stress of a fight," Charles says. They all look at Sean's throat, as though Charles's words were hypnotic; the scar is still livid and fresh. Janos moves up behind Sean and sets a hand on his shoulder, comforting, and Sean nods. Charles knows the redhead isn't happy about being left behind, but he can't risk jeopardising Sean's healing, not with the wound so perilously close to his windpipe and arteries.

"Hank, I'd like you to stay here," he continues, turning his gaze to the young scientist. Hank's not ready to embrace the violent side of himself, not so soon after having been treated as though that was all he was, and Charles wants to keep a few fighters at the compound. He adds, "Angel will need the backup, if it comes to a fight here. Darwin, I'd like you to stay as well."

Darwin nods, and the relief on Alex's face is unmistakable. Charles had bargained for that, but that's not the only reason he's leaving Darwin here. They can't afford to take too large a group with them, and Darwin's mutation is defensive, not offensive.

"Alex, you're with Erik," Charles continues. "And I'll be here manning Cerebro, in touch with Emma and Janos the entire time. Moira?"

"With the main group," Moira says firmly. "I can get us authentic-looking identification if Emma can cloud the minds of anyone who'd know the difference."

Emma nods agreement, and even gives Moira a brief smile. Then she says quietly, "We shouldn't count on being able to go in on the first day. You and I will need to take shifts on Cerebro, to keep in touch with Janos until Lang shows up."

Sean goes pale again. "You mean he might have to be there longer than a day?" he protests. "We don't even know what they're _doing_ to them in there!"

"Nothing bad, the first little while," Janos points out. He's been talking more lately, and Charles can't help wondering if a part of the younger man wants to be taken just in case they _do_ find the cure Shaw couldn't. He doesn't believe that Janos would betray them, though, not after this long. Not with the way he's squeezing Sean's hand in reassurance.

"Janos is right," Emma says. "They'd want to keep the volunteers happy for the first while, while they ran the more benign tests. They wouldn't start to get coercive until the volunteers started to baulk at some of the tests. I don't think Lang will stay way that long; everything I've found about him in his employees' minds says he enjoys being there. He likes _watching_."

Sean swallows another protest, nodding silently, unconsciously lifting a hand to finger the scar at his throat.

There's a moment of silence, which Erik breaks with a low, gruff cough. Under any other circumstances Charles would assume Erik is being matter-of-fact; now, with Erik's concern and fear and wariness radiating through the link, he knows Erik's trying to grapple with emotions he's not comfortable with anymore.

"This is it, then. I suggest you all get a good night's rest."


	10. Infiltration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before he goes into Stephen Lang's facility, Janos confronts the nature of his feelings for Sean. The endgame plan is put into play.

Janos is too nervous to feel nervous. He's aware that that's an impossibility, and he's also aware that he _volunteered_ for this, but that doesn't stop him from being, well, too nervous to feel nervous. He mostly feels _numb_ , as stilted conversation happens around him, as the others finish up their meal and scatter. He leaves as soon as he thinks he can; he can't handle talking tactics tonight. He needs to gather his thoughts, prepare to walk into a facility full of people who want to cut him apart.

He's unaware that he's being followed until he gets to his door and finds Sean behind him.

"You don't have to do this."

He smiles, a little sadly. "Yes, I do. Somebody has to, and I'm the best candidate. It makes sense."

"I don't _care_." Sean sounds frustrated, like Janos is being particularly dense about something. "I don't _want_ you to do it. I don't want you to risk yourself like that."

"Somebody has to," Janos repeats. "It-"

" _Don't_ tell me it _makes sense_!"

Janos frowns at Sean. "Why are you angry?"

Sean's quiet for a long time, so long that Janos thinks he's not going to answer, and then says, very softly, "I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want you to go away."

There's something there. Something confusing, something _new_ , and Janos isn't sure what he's supposed to do about it. His parents sent him with Shaw when he was sixteen, and he'd been a good little Catholic boy before that; there had been a few group dates with other teenagers in his church group before he lost his voice, but after that, they'd moved around too much, looking for a doctor to explain it, until Shaw had come. For a time it had been just the two of them and Azazel, who he _likes_ , but not like _that_. Even when Shaw brought Emma in, she was never an object of lust for Janos, too much like a goddess, distant and aloof. He recognises her beauty, but he needs more solidity.

He shouldn't be finding it in Sean. It's inappropriate. Sean's too young, _he's_ too damaged, there must be _someone_ more appropriate for Sean. He'd thought Alex, perhaps, but no; Alex is with Angel and Darwin. But this . . . he can't risk it. Can't risk finding out that it's nothing but gratitude for him helping Sean through his recovery. People think him cold because he rarely speaks, but he knows himself too well to think he would take that sort of disappointment easily.

"I won't be gone long," he says, trying to reassure Sean. He can tell it isn't working; Sean is still paler than normal, an odd firmness in his eyes behind the concern. Swallowing, Janos adds, "Charles and Emma-"

"I _know_." Sean rakes his fingers through his hair, finally growing back, bright against his pale skin. "I know they'll be there with you. I just . . ."

Janos is quiet, waiting. He knows, somehow, that Sean needs to say this, whatever he's going to say.

Eventually, softly: "I wish _I_ could be there with you."

"You still have nightmares," Janos points out, frowning. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

"You _never_ ask anyone to do _anything_." Sean sounds frustrated again. "You always do things for other people, not for _you_. Even _talking_."

Janos shrugs, uncomfortably rubbing his throat. With so many people around, he's been less and less comfortable having Emma translate for him. Talking hurts, but it makes him feel less _damaged_ , something he's certain he has no right feeling, considering what everyone else has been through.

"So no, I don't want you to go," Sean said, taking a step closer to Janos, something strange and enticing burning in his eyes. "I don't want you to be apart from us, for however long you have to be. I don't want you in danger. I want to be able to be there, to make sure nobody hurts you, and I fucking hate that I _can't_."

The curse makes Janos flinch; he's still got the sensibilities he was raised with, as far as swearing goes. His mother would have made him wash his mouth out with soap if she'd heard him saying anything like that.

"And I hate that you won't even _ask_ for - _anything_ ," Sean continues, the words feverish. "I _know_ you're terrified, but you just let them all talk around you because it's - God, I don't even know why! Did _he_ do something that made you afraid to ask for what you want?"

Janos stiffens, bristling. He's damaged, but he's not damaged in _that_ way, surely. Shaw was unscrupulous and Janos didn't always enjoy his attempts to find out why his mutation had damaged him so, but -

" _No_ ," he says, the word coming out soft and harsh and painful, and he can see contrition in Sean's eyes almost before the sound dies between them. "No. Shaw - _no_. No. Nothing like you're thinking."

Sean is closer, now, than Janos had realised, uncomfortably close if it had been anyone else. He whispers, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that, I just - I worry about you sometimes, the way you're so closed-in. I keep thinking how lonely you seem."

Janos shrugs, uncomfortable, and points out, "Shaw didn't encourage much camaraderie."

"Shaw's dead," Sean says, very softly. "And this-"

He reaches out to trace a pale line on Janos's throat, a wound long since healed, a scar he barely notices anymore. Oh, it makes shaving ever so slightly trickier, since he has to take care not to catch the slightly raised tissue, but other than that, it doesn't impact his day-to-day living. He rarely even notices it in the mirror anymore. But Sean has noticed - of course Sean has noticed, with a much fresher, uglier version of it on his own throat.

"The Professor is going to figure it out," Sean says, still touching Janos's throat, fingertips feather-light. "Without cutting into you."

Janos swallows, the motion pushing his flesh against Sean's fingers, strangely warm against his skin.

"Shaw's gone," Sean whispers. "Erik's strict, but he's fair, most of the time. The Professor _likes_ us to be friends. You . . . you can ask for things, if you need them. Nobody's going to . . ."

 _"What was that, Riptide? You'll have to speak up."_

Janos flinches away from the memory, but not before he sees something else in Sean's eyes. Not pity, he couldn't stand pity, but sympathy. Sympathy is all right; sympathy doesn't mean Sean thinks he's damaged, even though he knows he is.

"It was easier," Sean says, and his hand is still on Janos's throat, the other drifting up to rest on his upper arm, curled lightly around his biceps. "Wasn't it? Just staying quiet and letting him think it was because you didn't have anything to say. You don't have to do that here," he whispers, and somehow he's got close enough that they're practically touching with each inhalation. "You can ask for whatever you want. I want you to ask me. For _whatever_ you want."

Janos licks his lips, trying not to notice that Sean is close enough that Janos could bend his head and kiss him if he wanted to. He wants to. He can't. It wouldn't be fair.

"Ask me," Sean breathes, moving fractionally closer. "It's not - I'm old enough to know what I want, Janos. You wouldn't even be my first. But I want . . . I want you to ask me, please. If that's what you want."

They're right outside his room, standing in the corridor, and all he can think of is the way Sean's voice sounds, the feel of his breath on his throat, his hands on his skin, warm through his jacket sleeve. The way his eyes look, big and innocent and old and young all at once, the edge of his lower lip caught by his teeth, painting too clear a picture of how he might be made to bite his lip in other situations.

 _"You'll have to speak up."_

He shouldn't want this.

Words on a page, scrawled handwriting, a stubborn expression on the boy's face. _We heal together._

Shouldn't want this. Shouldn't burden Sean with his own damage . . .

Swallowing, feeling Sean's hand against his throat again, he whispers, "Will you stay with me tonight?"

His room is one of the larger ones; he likes the space, likes having his winds tangle around him sometimes. It helps him think, helps him wind down. Tonight, the winds lie quiescent as he leads Sean into the room, closing the door quietly behind them, aware that Emma and Charles, at least, will know about this by morning. More, if Sean loses control of his voice, and that almost gives him pause.

"Your healing-"

"I'll be careful," Sean promises. "It doesn't always happen when I - during - _fuck_."

His inability to _say_ it is oddly soothing; Janos smiles, pulling Sean closer and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. He's been entranced by Sean's mouth for at _least_ a month now, and he traces it delicately with his tongue before deepening the kiss, lifting a hand to stroke over Sean's hair, wishing it was still the wild tangle of curls it had been when they'd -

He cuts that thought off; thinking about when they'd been enemies would _definitely_ kill the mood. Instead, he walks backwards to the bed, keeping Sean close, still kissing him. It's a harder move than it had looked, the time Emma had kept him and Azazel up to speed on what their target was doing by projecting her movements into their heads, and he ends up tumbling onto the bed, Sean on top of him. They tangle, arms caught up and pinned, but Janos eventually manages to wriggle out from under Sean with the help of one of his winds, lifting the younger, slighter boy - man, he knows, but there's an innate _boyish_ quality about Sean, in the eyes or the way he moves, perhaps. _Not_ in his mouth. His mouth is nothing but decadent and sultry, even curled in a huff of laughter the way it is now.

"You're sure?" he asks, needing one last confirmation that this _isn't_ a terrible thing to do, that Sean _wants_ it, wants _him_ , even as damaged as he is.

Sean answers him by crossing the space between them and kissing Janos, murmuring against his lips, "I'm sure."

A tight band in his chest that Janos hadn't realised was there suddenly snaps, and his concern, his self-doubt, floods away. Smiling, a proper smile for the first time in longer than he can remember, he leans in the fraction of an inch needed to kiss back.

 

 

The next morning, Raven and Alex have put together an outfit that better suits a mutant who has been living rough because of the trouble his mutation gives him. Janos eyes it with distaste, toying with the cuff of his jacket and eventually sighing, shrugging off the jacket and laying it over the back of his chair. He's not as image-conscious as Emma can be, but he _likes_ his nicer clothing. There's something to be said for style - something she taught him, actually.

He's not numb, the way he was last night. He's still apprehensive, but he knows that Charles and Emma will be in his mind the entire time, that they're not going to let anything happen to him. Still, remembering the state that the others were in when Erik's team rescued them is sobering, and he can't help thinking about the wounds inflicted on them, both physical and not.

Sean is beside him now, holding onto his hand as though he's afraid Janos will disappear if he lets go. He's barely left Janos's side all morning – all _night_ , either, and _that_ thought brings a brief smile to Janos's face before it brings panic – if Charles is in his head, he's going to _know_ , and Janos is probably going to be in a _lot_ of trouble for sleeping with one of Charles's students, especially the one _eight years younger_ than he is.

"Relax," Sean whispers, squeezing his hand. "I'm a big boy, I can deal with the Professor."

Janos manages a nod, closing his eyes and focusing on breathing, calming himself. Unconsciously, he calls his winds to him, letting them whip around him for a moment, lending him strength. He won't be able to do it in the facility, he's certain, and that's going to be harder than anything else. He's had the comfort of his winds for so long, being without them is going to be unsettling.

Once he's calmer, he gives Sean's hand another squeeze and lets go, moving away enough to change into the clothes Alex and Raven figured out. Nothing too out of the ordinary, not for a young man with irregular income; patched jeans, heavy work boots, a battered leather jacket over a cotton t-shirt. A far cry from Janos's favoured clothing, and that will help, in case they have pictures of him from the attacks. He gives his hair a cursory brush, leaving it messy and tangled, and frowns a little; he should have thought to rub some dirt into his hands to make it look more like he's been living rough. Too late now.

"You look younger," Sean says, looking Janos over. "That's good. They underestimate you when you're young."

There's a knock on the door, and Erik comes into the room. Guiltily, Janos steps away from Sean, feeling as though he's been caught doing something naughty. He half expects Erik to scold him.

"Charles is ready," Erik says instead. "Are you certain about this, Janos?"

"Yes," he says softly. "I'm ready to go."

Erik is quiet for a moment before nodding. None of them like this plan, but it's the best one they've got. Janos smiles at Sean, feeling the expression tug at something in his chest, and follows Erik into the corridor, where Emma and Azazel are waiting.

"Charles or Emma will be with you the entire time," Erik says, obviously trying to reassure him. It's not quite successful, but Janos appreciates the effort. Erik continues, "The _moment_ you need us, even if Lang isn't there, tell them. We'll come get you."

Janos nods agreeably, but he's already decided not to use that out. They're sending him in to watch for Lang; he will watch for Lang. It'll be worth it if they can get the head of the snake, as Darwin put it.

He feels Charles's presence in his mind then, before it pulls back enough that it's not noticeable unless Janos looks for it. It's comforting, in a way, but he can't help thinking about what he _doesn't_ want Charles knowing. It's like trying not to think of elephants after someone says "don't think of elephants", and he can feel himself blushing.

 _«Relax,»_ Charles "says" softly. _«I'm in no place to judge, my friend.»_

Emma, Erik, and Azazel are looking at him expectantly, and he nods, murmuring, "He's in."

Azazel reaches out to take his hand, and Emma's, and then there's the sensation of pressure as they're teleported to the alley near where he's supposed to meet the scientist who will take him in. Emma has implanted almost a month's worth of encounters into the woman's mind, and will check to make sure none of those memories have been disturbed before Janos talks to her. Azazel will wait in the alley, out of sight, to get them both out if he needs to.

Giving them both a silent nod, Janos stuffs his hands into his pockets and saunters into the street, finding a spot beneath a lamppost and leaning against it, waiting.

The scientist is right on time. She's an unassuming woman, non-threatening, but her _job_ is threatening, even if her physicality isn't. Janos forces him to give her a smile, knowing it's coming out wan and weak and that that fits the role he's supposed to be playing.

 _«It's all clear,»_ Emma tells him, a hint of reluctance in her voice. _None_ of them like this. Handing themselves over sits wrong.

Before he can think twice about it, Janos squares his shoulders - metaphorically, at least - and takes a few steps to intercept the scientist.

"Good morning, Demetrio," she says, smiling at him, using the fake name Emma implanted. They don't want to run the risk that the facility will be able to track his real name. "I'm glad you decided to come. I was worried you were beginning to have second thoughts."

Janos shrugs, stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets, keeping his gaze down. Demetrio is awkward, jumpy, quiet. Very much _not_ a troublemaker.

The scientist offers him her hand, like he's a child. He jerks away a little, mumbling, "No, it's okay," deliberately playing up the hoarseness and harshness of his voice. It makes her flinch a bit, as it always does in the memories Emma implanted. Such obvious proof of the downside of mutations makes her uncomfortable, and explains why he wants help. It makes her look at him with pity, and _that_ makes him want to prove to her that he's not damaged, that he can do more than she thinks, but he keeps his temper tightly-reined. He has a job to do.

She leads him to a car parked by the side of the road, opening the back door for him. He slides in, instinctively moving as far across the back of the car as he can as she gets in beside him, and then they're off. The tinted windows make it difficult for him to see where they're going, and he's pretty sure the driver is using blind turns and double-backs to confuse Janos's sense of direction, but that's not important. As long as Emma or Charles are in his head, Azazel can get to him.

They drive in near-silence. The scientist tries to make conversation a few times, but Janos's quiet, pained responses make her uncomfortable, and after a while she stops trying. He spends the time focusing on centring himself, focusing his mind on what he has to do.

Finally, an hour after they got into the car, it pulls into an underground parking lot and stops. The scientist gets out first, leading Janos over to an elevator that uses a swipe card instead of a button. He fixes as many details about the parking lot in his mind as he can, relaying it to Charles; it might be a good spot to pull back to, if the fight doesn't go their way. There only seem to be two entrances, so enemies would be funnelled in, to be picked off one-by-one.

The elevator is claustrophobic, and Janos forces himself not to press back into a corner so he can see as much of the available space as possible. His claustrophobia had been a problem in the submarine, but it had been one he'd been able to overcome. He _prefers_ open spaces, but he can cope in enclosed ones, now.

When the elevator stops, the scientist leads him through a long white corridor and into a room that is obviously an intake room, where he's handed over to a pair of nurses, or at least people dressed as nurses. They sit him down and inform him that they're "just going to run some routine tests", taking blood and vital signs while they ask questions. He gives them the answers he spent hours rehearsing – his name is Demetrio, no last name offered and none asked for; his mutation developed when he was sixteen; his parents abandoned him when they realised their son was a freak. It's easy to let bitterness infuse his voice for that last part, and he notices the way they glance at each other before asking, carefully, if there's anyone he has to support him.

If there's anyone who will miss him, if they decide his consent for their tests isn't necessary.

It's important for them to believe that he has nobody, so he locks away the friendships he's been building, the more-than-that that Sean has become. He buries them deep in his heart and lets himself remember the loneliness he'd felt when it had been just him, Shaw, and Azazel, back before Azazel worked out that he understood English. He hadn't spoken at all in those days, fearing it would do further damage, and he'd had to depend on Shaw for everything; Shaw had been disinclined to provide him with paper and writing implements.

He blinks, startled to find tears in his eyes, and misses one of the questions. The nurses wait patiently for him to collect himself, and then the interrogation – because it is an interrogation, if a gentle one – continues.

Eventually, they have everything they want, at least for now, and he's taken to a room that's alarmingly reminiscent of a hospital room. There are clothes on a bedside table, neatly folded and all in the same shades of white, pale grey, and pale blue – a uniform, practically, designed to dehumanise. If all the test subjects look the same, it's that much harder to empathise with them.

The nurses leave him alone for a while, after assuring him that a doctor will come talk to him soon. They suggest that he shower and change, strongly enough that he knows it's an order rather than a suggestion, and, although it almost hurts to do so, he takes their advice, setting his costume aside. It's not _his_ clothing any more than the uniform is; he won't lose himself from putting on their clothing and making them believe him to be docile.

And then he waits.


	11. Retrieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Janos alerts the rest of the mutants to Lang's probable presence, the extraction team enter the facility to put the next part of their plan in play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for graphic torture in this chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> I know it's been a long time since I've posted. Things haven't been great; my brother passed away in March, and that has made writing difficult. That said, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, and I have the rest of this story plotted out, so while updating may be a bit sketchy depending on how I'm doing, I do intend to get the rest of it up. Thank you for bearing with me.

Janos contacts them in the middle of the night, screaming down the telepathic connection enough that Emma, startled, projects a brief blast of panic to all of them. It's enough to jolt Raven awake, and she's on her feet even before she's fully conscious, her hand wrapped around one of the knives that Azazel had insisted she keep by her bed. It's too dark for her to see, but she can hear Hank's breathing, harsh and rapid, sniffing the air to be sure there's no threat _here_ before they move on to the threat outside their grounds.

Raven had laughed at Azazel's insistence that they have an armoury, when they first found this place, but it's the first place she goes now, Hank hot on her heels. Azazel is already there, checking his knives for sharpness and strapping them into their sheaths, businesslike and cold on the exterior, although she's learned to read him well enough in the months that they've fought side-by-side to know that he's worried. They all are. The panic that Emma wasn't able to keep back was enough to let them know that something has gone badly.

 _«Gear up. We're going in,»_ Emma tells them, as Alex and Moira join them in the armoury. Moira is grim-faced as she puts guns in their holsters and straps on body armour. Alex looks pale, and Raven wonders if Charles made the right decision, sending him on the attack team, but they might need firepower, and Alex _is_ their best man when it comes to sheer offensive power.

Once they've all got their chosen weapons and body armour, they head up to the bell tower, where Emma is doing her stint on Cerebro. Charles and Erik are already there, and Raven catches a glimpse of Angel taking off to start doing an aerial sweep of the perimeter, just in case. That leaves Darwin and Sean; she glances at Charles, questioningly, and he says, "Darwin and Sean are doing a perimeter sweep on foot. Hank, once Emma and I switch places I'd like to have you here; I'll be keeping an eye on the situation in the facility, so I'll be vulnerable if anyone does show up. What are we looking at, Emma?"

"Janos says they've been drugged," Emma says tightly. "It's not a usual occurrence, so he thinks it means Lang is on the way and they don't want to risk any accidents."

"On the way at midnight?" Alex asks. "That doesn't sound normal."

"No, it doesn't. So we're going to be on alert," Erik says. "Azazel, Emma will give you the layout she got from Janos; I want you to take us into one of the unused rooms. Raven, change of plans; you go as one of the scientists, not Creed. We've got no way of explaining why he'd be there at this hour, if he's not already there with Lang. Once we're in, Azazel, I want you to teleport to Janos's room and check his situation. Emma, Moira, Alex, Raven and I will go after Lang. Stick together, nobody separate. We all clear?"

They nod, and Charles moves to take Emma's place at Cerebro. Raven feels the light brush of his mind against hers, making himself known without intruding, and reminds herself that this is very different from him reading her mind. She's still not entirely _comfortable_ with that idea, but she shoots a welcoming thought his way; this little bit of contact to maintain awareness of everyone is a far cry from an actual read.

As soon as Charles is situated, Hank moves to stand between him and the entrance to Cerebro, and Azazel glances at the rest of them, holding out his hands. They link hands, and the world compresses in a blur of red and black.

When Raven's vision clears, they're in a small, sterile room that contains a hospital bed with straps for elbows and ankles. Again thankful that they didn't bring Sean – this is too close to the room they'd found him in – Raven immediately takes on the form of the doctor Janos had identified as one of the higher-ranked scientists. She'd spent hours memorising his features and build, and the change is as smooth as the one between her natural form and her blonde form used to be, but it still feels _wrong_. She doesn't like knowing that any mutant they run across in here will look at her with fear.

She takes the lead, as the others tug on lab coats and the identification tags that Moira got for them. Azazel gives them a little wave as they leave the room. Raven wishes he could come with them, but there's no disguising him with a lab coat, and he has to go and make sure Janos is all right.

This late, the place is quiet. An orderly bumps into them and mumbles an apology before he really takes in Raven's form; once he sees her properly, he goes white, stammering, "D-Dr. Trask! I'm sorry, sir, I – we didn't expect you in tonight, sir."

"There are extra tests I want to run," Raven says crisply, blatantly ignoring the orderly's questioning look at the others. He doesn't show any recognition when he looks at Erik and Emma; Emma's psychic clouding must be working. When he hesitates, Raven makes an impatient sound and snaps, "That'll be _all_. I'm quite capable of handling my own business without hovering _employees_."

Everything they've heard about Trask says he's brusque and impatient; it's evidently true, because the orderly flushes and mutters an apology as he hurries off. Raven continues, her chin held high, hoping her appearance and bearing will keep them from being questioned too often.

They pass too many rooms with observation windows, where men and women – and teenagers, in some cases – are sleeping, monitoring equipment hooked up. Raven can feel Alex's tension behind her, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Moira move until she's between Alex and the windows, so he can't see as much. It doesn't fix things, but it helps a little.

It hurts, not helping all of these people right now, but they have to think long-term, Raven reminds herself. Long-term is finding Lang and stopping this _right now_. They have to ensure safety before they can help the people who have been taken in by some promise of a _cure_ for something they shouldn't have to feel ashamed of.

Finally, after too long, Emma says in their minds, _«Got him. Take the next left corridor, then the first door on the right. And be prepared for an ugly scene. He's got one of the patients in there.»_

Raven swallows heavily, nodding, and leads them down the next corridor to the left, pushing open the first door on the right. She can practically feel Moira drawing her pistols behind her, can feel Alex gauging the width and depth of the room and how much power he can release without burying them. She's making her own changes, thickening and toughening her skin to make herself resistant to damage.

And then the tableau hits her, and she feels like she's about to be sick. Lang and another man – General Creed, her mind supplies helpfully, linking the man's appearance to the dossier Emma put together for them all – are standing over a table that has troughs along the long sides, troughs that are lined with dark red-brown flecks. Strapped to the table is a naked young man, with a device painfully similar to the scold's bridle used on Sean strapped around his head and too many monitors displaying numbers Raven can't make sense of. There are electrodes stuck to him, and the tips of his fingers are bloody where nails have been torn out. His skin is peppered with bruises and burns, and there's something terrible about the sound of his breathing, like his lungs aren't able to fill properly.

Lang and Creed turn, both looking surprised, and before they can speak, Emma and Erik strike. Emma moves forward, focusing her attention on Lang, and he goes completely still, not even _breathing_. Raven watches in sick fascination as his face begins to turn purple, as panic fills his eyes, and she can't quite bring herself to _care_ that it looks like Emma is going to kill him. How many lives has _he_ taken?

Beside him, Creed is having significant trouble with his dogtags. Erik lets out a snarl of a laugh as the chain tightens around Creed's neck, whispering, "You people are never going to learn not to wear these, are you?"

"Erik. Emma." Moira's voice is calm and firm. "We need them alive. Stick to the plan."

Where's a moment of tension when Raven is afraid that Erik and Emma won't listen, but they relent eventually, and Lang and Creed fall to the floor, where Erik methodically pins them down. Emma crosses the room to stand over them, reaching down to place her fingertips on first Lang, then Creed's temples.

They'd discussed this, over and over. Charles hadn't liked it, but he'd admitted that there wasn't another option, not one that resolved things as relatively peacefully as this would. Killing Lang and Creed won't solve their problem, and might escalate things. There are too many other people out there who know about mutants and have the power to do them harm. Killing two men, however high up in the ranks of their enemies they are, will not help more than it will hurt.

The little telepathic chain-letter Charles and Emma spent weeks putting together, however, will.

Raven doesn't quite understand the theory, but she's no alone in that; nobody but Emma and Charles _really_ understand telepathy on the level that they need to for this plan. What she does understand is that Emma is implanting a time bomb inside Lang and Creed's minds, one that will go off repeatedly, every time they pass someone who has knowledge of this disgusting facility, every time they talk to a politician or armed forces officer who knows about "the mutant threat" and thinks of it like that. And each time the bomb goes off, it will be like a personalised EMP, tracking down every scrap of knowledge the victim has about mutants and erasing it.

Emma had pointed out that they could have tailored the virus to make people think well of mutants, but Charles had refused, and Erik had backed him up. Implanting new memories was one thing, but implanting new _opinions_ was difficult, because there were so many factors that went into how people felt about things. It was safer, and more thorough, to just erase the knowledge altogether, and give themselves time to prepare before humans "discover" mutants again.

It will take time for Emma to complete her implantation, Raven knows; leaving her to it, and leaving Erik to guard her, she moves over to the table, reaching out to pat the young man gently on one of the few patches of unmarked skin and saying softly, "We're here to help."

Moira is watching the door, but Alex comes to help Raven remove the restraints and the electrodes. When she carefully unstraps the bridle around the man's head, the sound his jaw makes as she slides the metal out of his mouth as gently as she can turns her stomach. The distortion of his face is enough to tell her that they broke his jaw before they gagged him, and the blood and tissue covering the metal insert – thicker than the one they'd used on Sean, designed to fill the man's mouth rather than gag him – combined with the _size_ of the thing points to them removing his tongue. She doesn't want to check, and not just because the idea makes her feel sick. She doesn't want to invade his body any more than Lang and Creed already have.

"They've got a file here," Alex mutters, keeping his anger poorly concealed. "He's – Josh? My name's Alex, and that's Raven. We're going to get you out of here. Just stay calm, okay?"

The young man – Josh – is struggling to breathe, the sounds wet and painful. Raven grabs the folder from Alex and scans it quickly, looking for Josh's mutation. They wouldn't have let him get this bad if there wasn't some way to fix it – and there it is. Biological manipulation.

"Josh," she says softly, taking on her natural form and moving to where he can see her, see the proof that she's like him, "I need you to focus, okay? You need to focus on your lungs, on making them whole again. Just listen to me and concentrate on that, okay? Concentrate on that, and it'll be easier to breathe. I know it hurts, and we're going to get you out of here, I promise, but you need to help us help you. It won't be safe to move you until we're sure you can breathe."

It takes excruciatingly long seconds, but his breathing evens out and starts to sound normal again. Alex, on the other side of the table, has both his hands around Josh's, rubbing the back of his hand encouragingly with his thumb, and murmurs, "That's it. You're doing great."

Raven glances over her shoulder at the rest of the room. Erik is guarding Emma, who is still deep in Lang's mind. She and Charles _had_ said that this part would take time. Moira is watching the door, her gun out, her expression stony. Wishing their only telepath wasn't busy, Raven turns back to Josh, removing the rest of the electrodes and taking off her lab coat, draping it over him to give him a semblance of privacy. She hates doing it, but she takes on Dr. Trask's form again, just in case someone comes in. They can explain Lang and Creed being down as an accident, but not if she's standing there in all her blue-and-red glory.

 _Finally_ , after too long, Emma straightens up and says quietly, "I'm going to do the rest of this facility. I'll wipe everything related, and have Azazel transfer them back to their homes. It's going to take a fair bit of time, though."

"We should get Josh out first," Alex says firmly. "The rest of us can stay to back you up, but he's not in any state to fight."

Emma nods. "Azazel has dropped Janos off; he's coming back here in–"

She's interrupted by the _pop_ of displaced air as Azazel teleports in. He remains expressionless as he looks around the room, but Raven can tell by the way his jaw tightens that he's trying very hard not to just kill Lang and Creed, who are both lying on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling. He takes one look at Josh and says, "I will get him to safety and come back for the rest of you," and doesn't even wait for an answer before gently taking the man's wrist and teleporting them both away.

Emma looks tired already; Raven doesn't envy her. Going into minds like Lang and Creed's must be dreadful. _She's_ unsettled enough just looking like Dr. Trask. Emma sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose, and says, "Let's move out. I want to do this thoroughly."

Raven can practically feel the psychic wave rolling out like the tide, with Emma following it and making changes with scalpel-like precision. The facility is set up in sections, with what feel like airlocks that are obviously in place to keep disruptions contained; they move through each section methodically, and as Emma renders each orderly and doctor unconscious, the rest of them check on the patients. None have been treated as badly as Josh; some show signs of tests, but they seem bewildered, more than anything else, for the most part. Erik talks to them quietly while Emma does her work, and he sends most of them back home with Azazel, giving them a phone number that will reach a machine that Hank has set up to be virtually untraceable by anything the government currently has. If any of them are in trouble, a message on that number or one of the periodic sweeps that Emma and Charles have decided to do will pick it up.

Some go with Azazel to be taken to where Charles and the others are waiting; a couple offer to stay, but Erik tells them to go to safety and rest. None of them are in any state to fight, drugged to near-unconsciousness as they are.

They get through five of six sections before things go wrong. Raven supposes, in that moment of clarity that comes before chaos, that they were lucky to get this far.

In the sixth section, Emma sends out the psychic wave, and the first person they see – and the first person to see them – is a dead ringer for Raven. Or, rather, she is a dead ringer for him, and the surprise at seeing him here, sitting next to a bed where a teenaged boy sleeps, stuns her long enough that he has a chance to react. Instead of calling out or drawing a weapon, he tears the heavy medallion from around the sleeping boy's neck and drops it over his own head – and Emma flinches, gasping, " _Bastard_. I can't touch him."

 _Now_ he calls out, sharp and authoritative, and the corridor is suddenly filled with sound as an alarm goes off. Raven immediately shifts back into her natural form, thickening and toughening the skin again, and lunges forward. Emma hadn't reacted until he put that medallion on, so her first course of action should obviously be to get it _off_.

Behind her, she can hear fighting. Too many minds for Emma to freeze all at once, she assumes, and not enough space for Alex to feel safe letting loose. Gunfire barks behind her as Moira fires, and she feels a brief pang of regret – they'd wanted this to be as bloodless as possible – but she smothers it. These people knew what they were doing, and she can't afford to feel pity for them.

" _Bastard_ ," Emma snarls again, her voice filled with venom. It's also got that particular sound that means Emma is in her diamond form; she must have decided to join the fight physically, since she can't hold all of their enemies telepathically. "He's your _son_ , you sick bastard. Does he even know what that thing _does_?"

Trask isn't given time to reply before Raven hits him, grappling with him for control of the medallion. They crash into the bed, but the boy doesn't wake, too heavily drugged to be brought out of his sleep naturally. Raven lengthens her nails and rakes them down Trask's face, trying to distract him with pain long enough to tear the medallion off. He seems reluctant to even touch her, like her mutation might rub off on him, and even in the midst of fighting, she takes a perverse pleasure in seeing him grimace every time her skin touches his.

She manages to get on top of him on the floor, giving her enough room to cock her fist and slam it into the side of his head until he stops moving. He's still alive, still breathing under her, but he's not fighting, and that's all she gives a damn about right now. She pulls the medallion off and turns, about to call out to Emma, when she sees the disaster a split second before it happens, too late to say anything.

Alex is fighting physically, and holding his own. Most of their enemies are unarmed, or armed with scalpels and the like, things that will hurt but not kill. Erik is using what metal he can, but there's precious little around. Moira is picking off targets coldly and methodically with her pistol. And then several things happen all at once.

One white-coated combatant manages to get past Alex as he grapples with a scalpel-wielding doctor to plunge a syringe into Erik's back.

In that moment of distraction, Emma stills, immediately turning towards Erik, and the doctor who stabbed him with the syringe pulls out a gun, firing it at Emma.

The odd-coloured bullet hits Emma's arm at the elbow, and the diamond shatters.

And Emma, Erik, and Moira all scream.

" _Azazel_!" Raven roars, knowing Charles will pick it up with his monitoring. They need to be gone. With Emma out of commission – and Raven has to assume she is, with the way she, Erik, and Moira are screaming – Lang and Creed will have woken up, and the psychic chain letter will do the rest of their job. It won't be as neat for this last lot, but Raven doesn't _care_. She needs to get the rest of them to safety. With the three older team mates out of commission, it's her job.

Azazel doesn't show up for agonisingly long moments, and Raven realises that if Emma, Erik, and Moira are reacting like this, Charles can't be doing any better. Azazel is _due_ back, though; she keeps that thought in her head as she and Alex fight to keep their screaming team mates safe from the thankfully dwindling number of enemies.

Finally, _finally_ , Azazel shows up. He takes one look at the situation and grabs Emma – and the severed diamond lower arm – and teleports out, returning seconds later to grab Moira and Erik and vanish again.

The alarms seem indecently loud, in the absence of screaming. Raven swallows, looking at Alex, and says, "We have to clear the rest of the section."

There aren't any other mutants in this section; just the boy, who, if Emma's initial reaction is right, is Trask's son. Raven looks down at the medallion in her hands for a moment and then gently slips it back over the boy's head. It might not do any good, but she doesn't want to take that risk.

Azazel returns, finally, and takes Raven, Alex, and the boy back to a scene of chaos. Sean and a shaky-looking Janos have taken charge of the mutants that Erik had directed to be brought back here; Hank, Angel, and Darwin have their hands full with the linked quartet. They've arrived back in time to see Hank sedate Moira; Charles is already down for the count, and Darwin is trying to hold Erik down. Erik is screaming in German, fighting the restraining hands, and Raven blinks back tears when she hears the name Schmidt amongst the furious, terrified words.

Nobody seems to know what to do. Oh, Hank is doing what he can on the medical front, but the confusion is smothering, and Raven can't stand it.

"Get the newcomers to rooms for the night," she said, forcing herself to sound in control, forcing herself not to hear Erik's screams or the way Emma is whimpering in agony. She hates herself for it, but she adds, "And I need to talk to Josh."


	12. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the heels of the latest crisis, Azazel does some mopping up and makes some plans with the information stolen from Lang's facility.

Azazel slips away in the confusion at the Brotherhood's compound. Raven has taken charge admirably; the others will listen to her for the duration of this emergency. It _is_ an emergency, and Azazel is aware of that, but he has another priority, one that he didn't tell Erik or Charles or Emma about. Nothing that will risk the mutants – quite the opposite – but he knows they'd protest, telling him not to risk himself.

He teleports back to the medical facility that they left in chaos; it is remarkably easy to take care of the remaining enemies. The ones who are still conscious are the main concern, as they haven't been hit by Emma and Charles's telepathic chain letter, and waiting for the ones who _have_ to awaken and infect these few survivors is too risky. Charles would never agree, so Azazel is grateful for his distraction, although he feels a little uncomfortable about being _grateful_ that Emma is in such pain and that their telepathic link is _sharing_ the pain. Still, it makes Azazel's job more convenient.

He dispatches the remaining conscious orderlies and doctors quickly and neatly, utilising his teleportation as needed to deliver swift strikes to the throat or heart. He's tempted to make their deaths harder, a tiny fraction of what they owe the mutants they have been complicit in hurting, but time more than mercy that stays his hand. He has time to kill them; he does not have time to satisfy his desire for justice.

The conscious enemies dispatched, he busies himself rummaging through the pockets of the unconscious ones, finding ID and addresses, and teleports the ones on the lower rungs of the hierarchy back to their homes. For some of them, he wets the inside of their mouth with alcohol and adds a spill near them, to give an explanation for their location – invariably in a garage or attic or other isolated area – and their lack of memory; for others, he shrugs and hits them firmly on the back of the head before arranging them near stairs with strategically-placed slicks of oil or spilled water. For yet others, he finds sleeping medication in their medicine cabinets, and arranges them in bed with the bottle on the bureau. There are more of _those_ than anyone else might have expected, but Azazel had been anticipating it. Not everyone would be capable of performing their jobs without medication to keep the recriminating nightmares away.

It takes time, and he chafes at how _much_ time it takes, but he's been covering his steps for longer than anyone knows. He can be patient.

He is less patient with Lang and Creed. Raven had been afraid that they'd wake, with Emma's hold broken, but Azazel suspects Emma put a time-delayed release into her commands; the men are still unconscious on the floor of the medical room. Azazel looks down at them for long moments, fingering the hilts of his knives, before swearing softly and kneeling beside them to find their identification and an indication of where they live. Much as he wants to bleed them out, that would be counter-productive.

Creed's home, at least, is inoffensive. Militarily tidy, and he appears to live alone, but it lacks the sort of opulence that would make it difficult for Azazel to resist killing the man while he slept. He drops Creed in the living room and spends a few minutes rummaging through the medicine cabinet, smiling a little when he comes up with what he'd been looking for – not a bottle of sleeping medication, but a bottle of prescription painkillers, the sort that cause drowsiness. Well, a man of Creed's military background – he should still be in active service, a dyed-in-the-wool patriot like him, but for an old injury that still, evidently, causes him pain. Azazel arranges him in the recliner in the living room, putting the most well-worn book in the shelves on the floor next to him where it might have tumbled down from limp fingers, and takes two of the pills from the bottle before putting it on the coffee table next to a half-empty glass of water. That should be a decent excuse.

And then he returns for Lang.

Lang's home is not as calming as Creed's. Not because it is overly-rich, but because of the clear and blatant interest in biology that is displayed everywhere. Not something that would offend Azazel under ordinary circumstances, but given what Lang is responsible for, it makes him edgy, wishing he could do more than put Lang in his armchair with a mostly-empty glass of brandy and a _very_ empty _bottle_ of brandy next to him. The diagrams on the wall, the number of biology texts on the bookshelves – they remind Azazel too strongly of what Lang had planned for the mutants who had, foolishly, entrusted themselves to his care.

As he glares at the books, he spots something out of place – something bound not professionally, but in a binder. Curious, he picks it up, and his blood runs cold when he sees the title – it's Charles's thesis. The one that talks about _homo sapiens_ and _homo neanderthalenis_ in terms that Azazel can see some people would find ominous. _He_ might believe that everyone would be better off with some not-terribly-judicious interbreeding, but clearly not everyone thinks the same way. Clearly, Lang saw enough in Charles's thesis to be concerned.

He takes the thesis, rummaging through a hall closet until he finds an old, dusty suitcase in the back, tucking the thesis into it, and, giving the place a final glare, teleports back to the medical facility, where he spends longer than he likes but exactly as long as he _needs_ appropriating all of their paper copies of patient records, each marked need-to-know and locked in filing cabinets that are easily opened by the keys he lifted off Creed and Lang. He stacks the folders in the suitcase, ransacking the facility and stripping it of any bit of information that he thinks would be remotely useful. He takes the bodies of the orderlies and doctors who weren't infected with Emma and Charles's virus, and he teleports them to a point a mile above the middle of ocean and lets them go. No doubt they will confuse archaeologists if humans ever manage to explore the extent of the world's waters.

Returning to the facility, he rigs the generators to overload and bring the place down ten minutes after he leaves, takes his suitcase, and teleports to an old shack in the middle of Russia, where he can take a few moments to rest and consider his options. He has a long list of contacts, gathered during his years of doing not quite the legal thing, and while he trusts few of them, there _is_ a list within that list – much shorter – of people he believes can do some good with the information he has stolen. People who are not involved with the government, America's or otherwise, who will see what has been done and will take the appropriate steps.

He is fairly sure Charles and Moira will not approve of his contacts, and he's not prepared to introduce them to Emma and Erik just yet, and he frankly thinks it would be better not to pile all their eggs in the same basket. The Brotherhood is in America, and for all Moira has old family friends in Scotland and Sean has some connection he hasn't revealed with Ireland, it is largely limited to America at the moment. Azazel is not.

The files are all de-identified, although he can identify some of them based on the descriptions of what was done to the mutants in question; he will not be giving away mutants' names. He trusts _nobody_ with that sort of information. But, once he has regained enough strength, he calls to mind the painstakingly neat, elegant apartment in Agarashima. He wishes he could call to warn Shiro, who dislikes surprises even more than he dislikes America – with reason, Azazel admits – but time is of the essence in this matter; a little incivility will have to be suffered.

Shiro, to his credit, does not react with much surprise when Azazel arrives in his living room. He raises an eyebrow, saying mildly, "I hadn't expected you back for six months, my friend. What disrupts your routine?"

Azazel grimaces; he doesn't like being so predictable, and he makes a note to vary his visitations a little more. He doesn't quite trust his contacts so far as all that. Rubbing the back of his neck, he says, "I need to speak with you. All of you."

" _Together_?" Shiro looks startled, and well he might; Azazel has never asked for a meeting with all of his contacts at once. Oh, they all know _of_ each other, but it has always been a matter of small meetings, two or three of them at once, never more. And even then, they have typical partners; Shiro works best with Heather and Irene, despite the vast differences in their personalities, and Margali is the only one, aside from Azazel, who can stomach much of Mikhail's rhetoric without needling him. Tom is a wild card, and often brings in Cain, who Azazel dislikes but allows on certain jobs. They rarely break those patterns. That Azazel is requesting a meeting with all of them says how serious the matter is, and after a moment, Shiro swallows and nods, saying, "I'll get dressed. Clear it with the others and fetch me in half an hour."

Shiro taken care of, Azazel next envisions the enclave in Siberia that will be his next destination, wishing he'd thought to put on a coat before he began his work. Siberia will be cold, this time of year, and he doesn't want to risk going back to the Brotherhood hideout for a coat and being caught. He's been in worse conditions, though, so he grits his teeth and knocks on the farmhouse door, waiting impatiently until it opens.

"Mikhail." He gives the other man a smile; they get on well, having a sort of patriotic tie, for all Azazel has no _real_ intrinsic love for Russia. He has sat through many of Mikhail's rants about the state of politics, though, and Mikhail has sat with him while he ranted about Sebastian's lack of proper foresight; somewhere along the way, they forged something like a friendship, enough of one for Azazel to ask after Mikhail's siblings.

Mikhail steps back to let Azazel in, closing the door quickly to keep the cold out, and says quietly, "Winter is always hard on Illyana. She doesn't like being cooped up inside. But she manages, and studies hard. Piotr is down with the flu, but he's strong. He will recover well. What brings you here?"

He gives the same explanation, and receives the same reaction, but Mikhail agrees, requesting a few minutes to ensure that his brother and sister are both settled and unlikely to be disturbs. Azazel nods, saying, "I have to speak with the others first; Shiro was the first I went to, and then you. I will return shortly."

Irene is easier; when he arrives, she's already sitting with her cane and tape recorder at hand. It had taken some convincing, back when they first began working together, for the others to allow Irene to record their meetings, but she'd pointed out that _they_ took notes and this was no different, was it? Margali had been the first to acquiesce, and after that it didn't take long for the others to agree, although Azazel has never been sure whether their agreement stemmed from an actual agreement with the argument or from Margali's often-formidable temper.

"How much do you already know?" he asks curiously, resisting the urge to help Irene to her feet. She deeply dislikes being treated like an invalid, and she knows her home perfectly; who is he to imply that she needs help in it? And he should know better than to ask that question; Irene is damnably close-lipped about how much her mutation allows her to see.

To his surprise, he actually gets an answer, if a non-verbal one. As she stands, her lips are pressed tightly together, and her hand is white-knuckled on her cane. It's as close to furious as he has ever seen her. As he's about to explain that he still has to convince Margali, Heather, and Tom, she said impatiently, "My presence will convince them that it's sufficiently serious."

She has a point, and Azazel isn't ashamed to use her reputation for deadly seriousness to bring the often-rebellious Tom around to the idea of a full meeting, and Heather, who sometimes seems disconcerted with the lack of remorse some of the others show about the necessary – and, occasionally, not-so-terribly-necessary – deaths that happen in their line of work. Margali isn't usually difficult, but he's grateful to have Irene's backing when he talks to the other two.

Tom is, as usual, brooding in the Keep. He's clearly in no mood to be disturbed, but he takes one look at Azazel and Irene and sighs, saying sharply, "I'm not working with Yoshida or Cameron."

"You aren't required to work with anyone," Azazel points out carefully. Tom's temper is explosive, and he doesn't want this meeting to go wrong before it's even started. "This is information, not a job."

Tom is silent for a moment, watching them, and then says, "Something happened in America, didn't it."

It's not a question, for all it's framed as one, and the tension that fills Tom's body now makes Azazel wonder, not for the first time, about the surname Tom shares with one of Charles's students. Cassidy isn't a rare name by any means, especially not in Ireland, but in Azazel's experience, coincidences are often anything but. He makes a note to check on Sean and Tom's history – and, perhaps, their _shared_ history – when this meeting is over. For now, he nods, saying, "Something big. You all need to know."

"This is serious," Tom again says more than asks, his gaze fixed on Irene. "You wouldn't be here if it wasn't something serious."

"And we don't have time for Cain's outburst," Irene says. "You'll tell him afterward. For now, it's best that he stays where he is."

After another moment, Tom nods and says, "Bring them all here. The Keep's more secure than anything else we could find except _maybe_ Margali's place, and it's more comfortable than the middle of the forest. I'll–"

"No," Irene interrupts sharply. "Don't arrange refreshments."

A sensible precaution, Azazel reflects as he and Irene make the next jump, this time to the sun-soaked Gold Coast of Australia. Few of them would be able to keep anything down, after he shows them what he has brought.

Heather is, for a wonder, easy to convince. All it takes is one look at Irene's face and she puts down her cup of coffee, methodically pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she picks up her phone and calls in sick to work, never taking her gaze off Azazel and Irene as she does. They take her with them to find Margali, whose location Irene provides after the fourth jump to where she _should_ be nets them nothing more than some forest creatures looking at them quizzically as they stand in a clearing that pointedly does _not_ contain the caravan.

Azazel hadn't expected Margali to be pregnant, and for a moment he's not sure what to say. Does he offer congratulations to her, or condolences, to have a child born in times such as these? Eventually Margali makes the decision for him, taking Irene's hand so he can teleport them all, without even asking what he wants. That he's shown up with Irene and Heather in tow is explanation enough.

He leaves Heather, Margali and Irene with Tom, confident that Margali and Irene will keep Tom and Heather from sniping at each other too badly, and collects Shiro and Mikhail, returning them to Ireland before fetching the case full of medical files.

"Earlier this evening, my American colleagues and I took out a governmental facility," he says quietly, watching the others for their reactions. "We have ensured that the men and women involved are no longer a threat, but this information – it needs to be spread. Those of us who would be targeted should know what they are willing to do."

Tom is pacing, a restless counterpart to Shiro's perfect stillness. Irene's expression is tight and anticipatory, contrasting Heather's surprise; the most law-abiding of them all, Heather still has trouble accepting what governments will do when frightened. Mikhail is standing with his back to the wall, perhaps taking comfort in its strength, perhaps simply keeping his attention on the rest of the room.

Margali's smile is bitter, and she says, "They were rounding them up, weren't they?"

Azazel nods to the case of files, saying simply, "You should not take my word for it. The proof is there."

Half an hour later, Heather and Mikhail have managed to stop throwing up, and even Tom is looking nauseated. Irene is the only one who has kept her composure, and Azazel suspects even she is feeling shakier than she lets on. Fingering her tape recorder, she remarks, "We have enough proof. If you let me take it for a few days, I'll have Tessa read it all. After that, we'll split it between us, and we'll take it to our respective contacts. We might not be able to stop the formation of such places, but we can keep the damage to a minimum."

They don't share plans beyond that; they never do. Theirs is a loose alliance, not an open one, and they all operate under the assumption that the fewer people know details, the safer those details are. Irene's assistant will be able to reproduce the information for their own records; Azazel has never met her, but Irene speaks highly of her memory. That is all he needs to know.

The Keep is full of tension, too many dominant personalities under too much pressure, but all the same, there's an odd sense of peace there, while they discuss how best to split up the files. There are no names, but there are some identifying factors, and their respective contacts will be more likely to take action based on their own prejudices. Despite the horrific nature of the atrocities they are discussing, the Keep seems somehow removed from it. It's an illusion, Azazel knows, one that will break the moment he takes the others back to their homes and returns to the Brotherhood compound, but for now, he pushes back his guilt at being away during a crisis and focuses on _this_.

Raven can handle the crisis. Azazel will handle the long term, to ensure that they _have_ a long term to consider.


End file.
